For many, solid-state drives are the way to go because of the speed advantages they offer over traditional platter-based hard drives. However, HDDs still hold the advantage when it comes to cost per GB. It's with that in mind that Seagate has started shipping the world's first 3.5-in HDD with a whopping capacity of 8 TB.
Seagate is, at least for the time being, targeting its new drive at enterprise users, such as cloud-based data centers, and back-up disaster recovery storage. This makes sense, as for such users it's all about making the most of space and cramming 8 TB into a single drive increases the storage density such facilities can accommodate.
Seagate also claims the the new drive boasts the best Watts/GB for enterprise bulk data storage in the industry, resulting in lower power costs for users. It also incorporates a SATA 6Gb/s interface, making it easy to integrate into existing data centers.
Seagate is shipping the drives to "select customers" right now, and it's planning to offer the drives to the masses sometime next quarter (October – December 2014). Pricing details are yet to be announced.
Source: Seagate
