samsung spinpoint n seriesSamsung has reportedly halted development of 1.8 inch hard drives. And while Digitimes reports that this could “hamper” the shipments of netbooks and ultrathing notebooks int he short term, it could be a good thing in the long run. Because let’s face it, 1.8 inch hard drives are kind of crappy.

Sure, they smaller than your typical 2.5 inch laptop hard drive, which lets you cram them into smaller spaces like iPods or tiny netbooks. But they’re also generally a lot slower than their big brethren, spinning at 4,200 rpm or less. In some situations, you’d hardly know the difference between a 4,200 rpm disk and a 5,400 one. But when it comes to activities like copying large files, every little bit helps, especially when you’re using a netbook which has a relatively slow processor.

So honestly, I’d rather have a notebook with a 2.5 inch hard drive or a smaller solid state disk than a 1.8 inch hard drive. And I’m probably not alone. HP’s first netbook shipped with a 1.8 inch hard drive in an effort to keep the laptop as slim as possible. But when HP introduced the Mini 110 a few weeks ago as the updated version of the Mini 1000, the company replaced the 1.8 inch hard drive with a 2.5 inch model. The new netbook may be a bit thicker, but at least it doesn’t have an underpowered hard drive.

According to DigiTimes Samsung and Toshiba are the only two major companies producing 1.8 inch hard drives, so Samsung’s decision to pull out of this market could have a major impact.

via Netbook Choice

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3 replies on “Samsung stops production of 1.8 inch hard drives, good news or bad for netbooks?”

  1. That is sad news, for both nebooks and USB drives. 1,8″ drives fit into usb power abilities unlike 2,5″ drives which consume up to 5W (twice max supplied by usb) and so have power problems on some computers, as well same size same speed SSD are much more expensive than 1,8″ drives. Actually I do intend buying Samsung S1 portable USB drive.

  2. In other news, Toshiba announced price increases for their 1.8″ drives…

  3. Lets have more SSD based netbooks again, like in the “old days”. I would rather have an SSD of practically any size than the de-facto 160GB of juice guzzling shock sensitive rotating rust.

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