Small harddrives are good and cheap for storing data, and even if most really small models are used in mobile devices the interest for small portable storage solutions have grown. Samsung has launched an 1.8″ harddrive that is clearly meant to be used for external storage. The harddrive is called SpinPoint N3U and can store up to 250GB in the same size as a credit card. The big news with SpinPoint N3U is that it comes with an integrated USB controller.
Samsung has wired a PATA to USB controller directly on the circuit board, which saves space for companies using the harddrive for external USB storage solutions.
“As a native USB interface device, the Spinpoint N3U eliminates possible points of failure due to loose cable connections and optimizes performance by eliminating the interrupt service time for the bridge board to convert PATA to USB signals. And the N3U 1.8” drive also consumes about 40 percent less power than a 2.5” hard drive of an equivalent capacity.”
The harddrive spins at 3600 RPM and has 8MB cache. The price of the drive will be around $200 when it ships to OEM manufacturers in a week or so. Then we will just have to wait and see the first storage solutions using Samsung’s new USB harddrive appear.
Samsung SpinPoint N3U easily fits in the wallet
