Hard Drives for Netbooks Getting Cheaper, Pushing overall Prices Down
By Jenny • Dec 19th, 2008 • Category: Mobile Computer NewsNetbooks have surged in popularity since their inception only a little over a year ago. These devices offer the functionality of a laptop, but with a much smaller size and compact form and price. As a result they are preferred over any other mobile computing device currently available on the market.
To drive the already very low netbook prices down even further, three major hard disk drive manufacturers, i.e. Seagate, Western Digital and Hitachi, are now working on a new 2.5 inch low cost HDD which to be installed in netbooks. According to these companies, the new netbook HDDs will be 40 to 50 percent cheaper than the current ones and will play an important part in increasing the demand of netbooks next year. However, making quality products with a compact form factor and low price is a big challenge for the companies but it is still a realistic target.
The hard drive manufacturers will cut production costs by minimising the cost of integrated circuits, platters and heads. The first low cost HDD will offer a storage space of 80GB and use a single platter. Afterwards, the 120GB version will hit the market. Once the new low cost netbook HDDs will get launched in the market it will definitely discourage the users to go for SSDs, like the OCZ SATA II 2.5 SSD, which are very expensive.
Tags for this article: mobile, netbook, netbooks
