Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd announced today its Spinpoint N2 160 gigabyte (GB) is shipping. Featuring a fast speed of 4200rpm in a 1.8� form factor, which is the size of a business card, Samsung’s N2 160GB drive ushers in a new era of high performance storage for PDAs, MP3 players, camcorders, digital cameras and game consoles.

Samsung’s advanced hard disk drives will be on display at CES 2008 in its Semiconductor Product Showcase, #N236, at the Las Vegas Convention Center, North Hall, 2nd Floor. Information regarding this product and other Samsung news at CES is available online at www.samsung.com/us/business/semiconductor/news/News_MediaCenter.html.

According to market research firm IDC, 1.8� hard disk drives are expected to grow from 3.8 million units in 2007 to 22.1 million units in 2011 at a compound annual growth rate of 55 percent.

"High-capacity small form factor hard disks are popular storage devices for portable consumer electronics devices today," said Andy Higginbotham, director of hard drive sales and marketing, Samsung Semiconductor. "Samsung’s Spinpoint N2 160GB can store 40,000 MP3 music files, or 100 DVD movies, all at an affordable price."

Samsung’s Spinpoint N2 160GB drive features low power consumption. In portable PCs, the low power feature can extend the battery lifetime approximately 20 hours compared to a 2.5� drive. Samsung’s proprietary SilentSeek technology minimizes the acoustic noise level to 1.6 Bel, which is the industry’s lowest level.

Electronic products such as cellular phones and portable media players are usually shock resistant to up to 250G. The Spinpoint N2 160GB can resist an operating shock level of up to 600G. In addition, an optional free-fall sensor technology, which locks the head when it detects a drop, raises the shock coverage level to up to 1500G. This feature adds a higher degree of content protection for portable consumer electronics such as laptops, digital camcorders and MP3 players.

The Spinpoint N2 160GB also includes a 4200rpm spindle speed, a CE ATA interface, an 8MB cache memory. With the addition of 160GB capacity, the Spinpoint N series is now available in a range of densities from 40GB to 160GB.

The Spinpoint N2 is currently available for a $199.00 MSRP.

Source: Samsung press release