Samsung today announced its new 640-Gigabyte (GB) 2.5-inch Spinpoint M7 internal hard disk drive.

The new 640GB hard drive, now the top-density drive of the popular M7 family, has an areal density of 516-Gigabit per square inch for each 320GB platter, which is a 28 percent increase per platter over Samsung?s previous 500GB hard drive.

Samsung?s new Spinpoint M7 model is designed for high-end mobile computing applications requiring greater shock resistance without a compromise in performance.

Increasing the areal density of 516-Gigabit per square inch raises the total drive capacity without adding additional platters. By maximizing capacity without increasing mechanical parts, the two-platter 640GB drive has lower power consumption levels and higher operational stability compared to drives with a higher number of platters.

The new M7 drive offers a shock resistance level of 400G (2ms) in operation mode and 900G (1ms) when the power is off. An optimized system-on-chip controller reduces the power consumption in both seek and idle modes to the lowest level among comparable drives.

The Spinpoint M7 utilizes Samsung?s proprietary SilentSeek and NoiseGuard technologies to minimize noise-levels during drive operation.

The Spinpoint M7 series, which is available in 160-, 250-, 320-, 500- and 640-GB capacities, offers a rotational speed of 5400RPM, a 3.0Gbps SATA interface, Native Command Queuing and an 8MB cache memory.

Initial shipments will be available in Europe and the U.S. from mid September, with worldwide availability starting from late September. The 640GB Spinpoint M7 will begin shipping with a MSRP of $149.99.