Seagate today announced the Momentus Thin drive, the world?s thinnest 2.5-inch hard disk drive for ultra-portable and entry-level laptops, high-end netbooks, backup devices and consumer electronics.

At a wafer-thin 7mm in height ? 25 percent slimmer than traditional 9.5mm 2.5-inch laptop hard drives ? the Momentus Thin drive gives original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and system integrators significantly lower cost-per-gigabyte storage than solid state and 1.8-inch drives, enabling a new breed of entry-level thin laptops.

Of all netbook computers available today, 90 percent feature 9.5mm 2.5-inch laptop drives because solid state and 1.8-inch hard drives are cost-prohibitive for this market. The Momentus Thin drive provides affordable, thin storage for netbooks and slim laptops, enabling computer makers to offer systems that reach a broader market.

"The Momentus Thin drive promises to help computer makers differentiate on mobile-computing form factor and better compete in the fast-growing markets for thin laptop PCs and netbooks," said Dave Mosley, executive vice president of Sales, Marketing and Product Line Management at Seagate.

The Momentus Thin drive rivals traditional 2.5-inch laptop drives in performance and power-efficiency, enabling thin-chassis designs in all segments of notebook computing and allowing OEMs both to design in greater value on high-end netbooks for easier upselling and to create a wider value differentiation between consumer and commercial laptop PCs. The Momentus Thin drive features two capacity points ? 250GB and 160GB ? an 8MB cache, a Serial ATA 3Gb/second interface and a 5400RPM spin speed. The drive is scheduled to ship to Seagate?s OEM and integrator partners in January 2010.

Seagate Momentus 5400RPM and 7200RPM hard drives in the traditional 9.5mm height combine a broad feature set ? including self-encryption, FIPS 140-2 certification and free-fall sensors ? with up to 640GB of capacity, fast 3Gb/second Serial ATA interface speeds, cache sizes as large as 16MB, and among a high hard drive shock-tolerance, acoustics and reliability specifications for entry-level, mainstream and high-performance laptops.