Samsung’s newest terabyte drive won’t be reversing the Republican’s rumored Green House Effect (Demos say it for fact), but at $200 it’s probably the cheapest terabyte drive to date.  The EcoGreen F1 hard drive can be used as an internal or external drive, and provides 15% power savings compared to other low energy drives and a 50% power reduction compared to other standard terabyte drives.  The EcoGreen F1 achieves part of its efficiency by utilizing 3 platters, each containing a capacity of 334GBs, which apparently reduces the number of moving parts to operate the drive.  The EcoGreen F1 also utilizes some low noise operation technology: SilentSeek and NoiseGuard.  Although Samsung touted it ideal for video surveillance, the EcoGreen F1 only spins at 5400 RPMs which in my experience is too slow for capturing streaming video.

The Samsung EcoGreen F1 will be available next month for $199.99

Official press release after the ‘leap’

Samsung Announces One Terabyte Capacity “EcoGreen” Hard Disk Drive for Surveillance and Audio/Video Recording

SEOUL, South Korea–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology, today announced its one terabyte EcoGreen F1 hard drive with low power features. Samsung’s new eco-friendly drive can be adopted as an external hard drive as well as an internal drive for desktop PCs. It is also ideal for surveillance applications and for audio and video recording where low power and stability requirements are critical.

Samsung’s EcoGreen F1 hard drive provides a 15 percent power savings compared to other low-powered one terabyte capacity hard drives and a 50 percent power reduction against traditional one terabyte hard drives.

“Since 2003, Samsung’s hard disk drives have complied with the (RoHS) restriction of hazardous substances directive as well as the (TBBP-A) brominated flame retardant restriction,” said T.J. Lee, vice president of sales & marketing for Samsung Electronics’ Storage Division. ” The EcoGreen product line is designed to meet consumer demand for eco-friendly, high-performance devices with an optimized cost of ownership advantage.”

The EcoGreen F1 hard drive offers the highest capacity per disk for one terabyte hard drives, at 334GB per platter. This reduces the number of parts required to operate the hard drive and helps to boost the drive’s speed for overall improved performance.

Samsung’s new eco-friendly hard drive utilizes its low noise operation technology SilentSeek™ and NoiseGuard™ to achieve a quiet operation system. A reinforced flying on demand (FOD) technology controls the distance between the disk and the head, a safety measure to protect the head and raise the stability of data stored on the disk.

Samsung’s EcoGreen F1 incorporates 5400RPM rotational speeds, 3.0Gbps SATA interface, native command queuing features along with a 32MB buffer memory.

The EcoGreen F1 will launch in the second quarter of 2008 with a MSRP of $199.00.

About Samsung Electronics

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2007 consolidated sales of US$103.4 billion. Employing approximately 150,000 people in 134 offices in 62 countries, the company consists of five main business units: Digital Media Business, LCD Business, Semiconductor Business, Telecommunication Business and Digital Appliance Business. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com.