US hard drive manufacturer Seagate has announced it will soon stop the production of 7200 rpm mobile hard drives. The company will focus on solid-state hybrid drives (SSHDs) instead but will keep on offering 5400 rpm mobile hard drives for value notebooks.
The decision to quit making 7200 rpm HDDs for notebooks is driven by the fact that they indeed offer better performance than 5400 rpm drives of the same kind but consume more power (and shorten notebook battery life) and are still very slow when compared to any kind of SSHDs or SSDs. Thus people who need a high-performance notebook require the usage of SSDs inside instead of 7200 rpm hard drives, which has negatively affected Seagate and its 7200 rpm mobile hard drive business.
Seagate is expected to launch a number of SSHDs this year but the company will still sell 7200 rpm mobile hard drives for the time being until the existing inventory gets exhausted.
Source: Seagate