Hitachi revolutionizes “Tera Era“ with new 1-terabyte hard disk drive

11 July 2008

Hitachi had already crossed the terabyte barrier with its Deskstar 7K1000 hard drive back in January 2007. Now, it has gone one step further by coming out with, not a larger version of the hard disk, but a more efficient one, even as rival Seagate proposes to go one step further, in fact, quite a few steps, by raising the benchmark for maximum capacity by a whopping 50 per cent. (See: Seagate launches world's first 1.5 terabyte hard disk drive).

This product, called the Deskstar 7K 1000.B, has been dubbed by Hitachi as the world's most energy-efficient 7,200RPM HDD (hard disk drive) and the perfect solution to the ever-increasing storage demands of modern computing in what it is calling the ''Tera Era''.

Like its predecessor, the 7K1000.B is a 3.5-inch, 7,200rpm hard drive that serves up 1TB of storage space and a 32MB buffer. It hits that magic terabyte mark, however, by using only three disks - down from the five-disk design of the older 1TB drive. It also borrows from Hitachi's 2.5-inch mobile drives and includes Bulk Data Encryption.

''Hitachi pioneered the industry's first terabyte hard drive, so we are pleased to see how the market for high capacity desktop and laptop drives has grown substantially in the past year,'' trumpeted Larry Swezey, director of Consumer and Commercial HDD Marketing and Strategy at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

''Now through the application of Hitachi's advanced head, media and channel technologies, we can bring to market a terabyte drive using only three disks that has advanced performance and best-in-class power consumption,'' he added.

By applying Hitachi's seventh-generation power management technology and innovations pioneered on the popular 2.5-inch Travelstar line of mobile hard drives, the Deskstar 7K1000.B delivers best-in-class power management and thermal emissions to help manufacturers meet or exceed energy compliance targets.