Samsung Electronics (http://www.samsung.com) has rolled out a new drive series, a BD Combo and an external DVD writer.

Samsung is now shipping the Spinpoint F4, the newest model of its Spinpoint F series drives. It's engineered for high-end computing in Macs, PCs high-end workstations and server applications. The one-head platform of the new 7200rpm Spinpoint F4 packs up to 320GB of storage capacity per one head in half platter.

With a one-head platform design and fewer mechanical parts, the reliability and acoustic features of the Spinpoint F4 have been improved, says In-Chul Park, vice president of sales, storage systems division, Samsung Electronics. The drive delivers 10% increased read/write performance and 7% lower power consumption than the Spinpoint F1, he adds.

The Spinpoint F4 features 7200rpm speed rotation, advanced areal density technology and a SATA 3.0 Gbps interface. The drive has an 8MB/16MB buffer memory and is available in 320GB capacities worldwide.

Samsung has also announced a new Blu-ray disc (BD) Combo, the SH-B123 optical disk drive (ODD), which reads BD-ROMs at up to 12X, CDs at up to 48X, and DVDs at a maximum speed of 16X. With Samsung’s new internal Blu-ray drive, users can watch HD movies on their PCs -- but not, alas Macs, as Apple doesn't support Blu-ray playback -- as well as record HD camcorder movies and HDTV broadcasting on DVDs with Samsung’s Cyberlink Powerproducer software provided in the BD combo package.

“As market demand and adoption of BDs, HDTVs and digital broadcasting accelerate, so has consumer interest in watching Blu-ray movies on personal computers,” says John Suh, Director of Samsung Semiconductor Inc. Optical Disc Drive Division Sales Team. “Samsung’s new BD combo drives can read BD discs, and read and write CD/DVD discs, providing consumers with a broad choice of HD movie sources on their computers.”

With Samsung’s Cyberlink Trutheater technology, consumers can upscale DVD resolution movies to full HD resolution. The new BD combo -- due in July -- utilizes two lenses and a two laser diode structure, which purportedly provides stable BD read, and DVD and CD read/ write performance. SACT (Spherical Abberation Compensation Technology) improves the quality of the read function on BD drives if the protective layer doesn't have a uniform thickness.

The BD Combo provides a variety of speeds across different data media types including: 12X BD-ROM read, 8x BD R/RE/DL read, 48X CD-ROM, 40X CD-RW, 16X DVD±R recording, 12X DVD-RAM recording, 8X DVD±R Dual Layer recording, 8X DVD+RW recording and 6X DVD-RW recording. Pricing hasn't been announced.

Finally, Samsung announced its new slim external DVD writer, the SE-S084D optical disk drive (ODD), is now available worldwide. It features a rounded shape and is available in seven colors. Its compact size is 20% smaller and 25 percent lighter than conventional DVD writers.

The Mac compatible SE-S084D DVD writer features Buffer Under Run technology to prevent errors that result from writing speeds that exceed data transfer speeds, while also enabling multi-tasking. The external drive provides a variety of speeds across different data media types including: 24X CD-ROM, 24X CD-RW, 8X DVD±R recording, 5X DVD-RAM recording, 6X DVD+R Dual Layer recording, 6X DVD-R Dual Layer recording, 8X DVD+RW recording and 6X DVD-RW recording. The SE-S084D is available worldwide at online retail outlets with a manufacturer's suggested retail price starting at US$69.99