News Seagate announces high-capacity (up to 5TB) non-SMR 2.5" HDDs

From Toms Hardware.

Up to 2TB 2.5" drives in 7mm Z-height, and 3TB-5TB in 15mm Z-height. Up until now, high-capacity 2.5" HDDs have been using SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) which has a dramatic and detrimental effect on random write speeds (or any write speed on a drive containing data) and drive lifetime.

SSDs are the better choice for your primary drive for SFF (or any Pc, really), but are still limited in storage capacity outside enterprise drives, and remain vastly more expensive per GB. While a NAS or external HDD array using 3.5" drives is great for in-home use, for portable use you can't beat internal storage. These are a great option to complement an SSD for boot/programs, with data that doesn't need the speed of an SSD able to be offloaded to the 2.5" HDD.

Sadly a false alarm, these are still SMR drives.

 

[Phuncz]

Interesting, although 15mm thick drives aren't always supported so the 2TB 7mm is the more impressive feat. Still, SSDs are gaining speed in the race for the top. I'm guessing we'll know when SSDs have won when consoles and laptops come standard with them in the popular price brackets.

 

[Mango]

Spinning at 5,400rpm and priced at ~$85, these are perfect for cheap storage if your case supports 15mm 2.5" drives. This might finally be the trigger for me to build the NAS that I've always wanted.

 

[Phuncz]

Too bad these only support up to 12.5mm.
But that's more motivation to go full-custom !

 

[iFreilicht]

I guess in a year or so we could see these drop to 12.5mm, but I don't expect them to get down to 9.5mm before 10TB 15mm drives exist.

 

[EdZ]

Sadly a false alarm, these are still SMR drives.

 

[Phuncz]

That's disappointing. Hopefully PMR drives will soon see more progress. I don't want to see the last days of HDD to end with slow-ass SMR drives.