Seagate Preps 8TB Hard Drive for Shipment, Bargain Priced at $260

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Mass storage at just 3 cents per gigabyte

Solid state drives (SSD) are where it's at in terms of performance, but the reason they can't shove mechanical hard disk drives (HDDs) out of the market is because of price. Even after NAND flash memory took a nose dive, the price-per-gigabyte of an HDD is far superior to that of an SDD, and when Seagate's 8TB ships, that fact will be will be underscored, highlighted, bolded, and everything else.
According to ExtremeTech, the 8TB drive will launch with a price of $260, presumably MSRP. Folks, that breaks down to mere pennies per gigabyte -- just over 3 cents to be exact. On top of that, you get a three-year warranty, low power consumption, NCQ support, self-encryption, and other goodies.
The drive is really intended for cloud storage chores. It uses Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology, has a SATA 6Gbps interface, S.M.A.R.T. monitoring, 128MB of cache, and a 5,900 RPM spindle speed. It's being billed as an "Archive Hard Drive," which essentially trades performance for reliable and cheap storage.
Though they're intended for cloud chores, retailers will soon offer them to home consumers. As it stands, it looks like they'll be available to purchase next month.
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