Samsung Electronics has rolled out Spinpoint N3U, a new 250GB, 1.8 inch hard disk drive with a native USB controller on its printed circuit board.
The new N3U drive reportedly stores up to 125 gigabytes per platter for a total 250GB data storage capacity. It is said to be suitable as portable external storage devices.
Samsung said that most external hard drives require the addition of a bridge circuit board to convert the hard drive’s PATA interface into a USB interface. Its new N3U drive, however, uses a native USB interface and as such does not require it.
The company claimed that, as a native USB interface device, the new N3U drive eliminates possible points of failure due to loose cable connections and enhances performance by eliminating the interrupt service time for the bridge board to convert PATA to USB signals. The new drive is said to consume about 40% less power than a 2.5” hard drive of an equivalent capacity.
The new N3U drives comes in 120-, 160-, 200- and 250-GB capacities with a disk rotation speed of 3600rpm. The drives, which are equipped with an 8MB cache memory, support a USB 2.0 interface.
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