The 7,200-RPM drives are available in 200-GB, 250-GB, 300-GB and 400-GB capacity points, with either a native Serial ATA or parallel ATA interface. The drives feature either an 8-Mbyte or 16-Mbyte buffer, depending on the model.

Seagate did not release a price for the new drive, which will be available to retailers as well as system builders and OEMs.

Although the pace in areal density increases has tapered off, Seagate said it was able to pack 133-Gbytes onto a single disk, thus enabling the 400-GB capacity point. The drive requires an average of 8.0 milliseconds average seek time, and includes fluid-bearing motors to reduce noise.

The new drive requires no special cooling, according to John Paulsen, a spokesman for Seagate. "It's max operating environmental temperature is 60 degrees C, just as previous generations have been," Paulsen wrote in an email to ExtremeTech. "Normal PC cases provide sufficient space and airflow to maintain that temperature, but if a modder chooses a unique case the case designer will usually have cooling recommendations."

The drives also include Native Command Queuing, a component of the upcoming SATA-2 standard whic many drive makers are already includng in their SATA-1 drives. NCQ organizes the commands to the drive in such a way that overall performance is improved.

The drive's warranty is equally large: five years.