Seagate has announced the first 3.5-inch hard drive featuring 1 TB of storage capacity per disk (platter). It means that from now on, we will have on the market high-capacity hard drives with fewer platters and heads. With fewer components, hard drives’ prices tend to drop (at least we hope so).

Just to put things into perspective, the Seagate 3 TB Barracuda XT hard drive features five 600 GB platters (488 Gigabits per square inch) and 10 heads. With 1 TB platters (625 Gigabits per square inch), Seagate can produce a 3 TB hard drive using only three platters and six heads.

The first products to utilize 1 TB platters will be launched within Seagate’s GoFlex Desk external hard drive series, but the company will also launch Barracuda XT models (in 1.5 TB, 2 TB and 3 TB capacities) with 1 TB platters in mid-2011.