Samsung debuts fast 200GB 2.5-inch drive

Three new 2.5-inch SATA drives have been announced by Samsung. The most notable of these may be the SpinPoint MP1, which holds an ample 200GB, and is rated at 7,200rpm. While these facts are not individually significant, most hard drives of the size sacrifice either speed or capacity to maintain the other statistic. And while the MP1 is intended for workstations, RAID servers and blade servers, it is speculated that it may end up in laptops, notably high-performance models like Apple's MacBook Pro. The drive should begin production in May.

The other two drives are also laptop compatible, but fall under Samsung's SpinPoint M5 series. A 160GB model starts production later this month, while a dual-disc 250GB drive is under development. These are specifically aimed at laptop computers, but are unfortunately rated at 5,400rpm, and use a 1.5Gbps interface instead of the MP1's 3Gbps.