Samsung has become the latest hard disk drive maker to get a 1TB desktop product out the door, with the launch of its SpinPoint F1 series. It follows hot on the heels of Seagate, which got its own terabyte drive out last week.

Samsung said the 3.5in F1 packs in three 334GB platters which spin at 7200rpm. There's 32MB of cache. It has a 3Gbps SATA interface and support native command queueing (NCQ).

Seagate's 1TB Barracuda 7200.10 has much the same spec - 7200rpm, 3Gbps SATA, NCQ - but contains four 250GB platters. Still, it's the speed and capcity that matter, and in those the drives are equally matched.

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Samsung also claimed that its drives in the series will be "whisper-quiet" thanks to its NoiseGuard and SilentSeek noise and vibration reduction technologies.

The first SpinPoint F1 in the range is available now for around $399 (£200/€297).

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