Hitachi GST has announced their first 3.5-inch hard drive featuring 1TB of storage capacity per platter. The milestone was first announced by Seagate in May, with drives hitting the market last month. But while Hitachi may be playing catch up here, breaking the 1TB areal density barrier means they"ll be able to produce high-capacity hard drives with fewer platters and heads, which ultimately translates into lower costs, power consumption and failure rates.
&ldquoThe areal density race continues and while having the highest capacity is appealing, reaching 1TB per platter is equally important as it serves a full range of applications and opportunities across the industry&rsquos largest market volume,&rdquo said Bran Collins, vice president of product marketing at Hitachi GST.
The new technology will begin shipping with single-platter models in the Hitachi Deskstar and Cinemastar series though there will be models with 250GB, 320GB, 500GB or 750GB capacities as well. The company"s Travestar range for the ultra-thin and light notebook market hasn"t been updated with 1TB capacities as far as we can tell.
The Hitachi Deskstar 5K1000.B and Deskstar 7K1000.D feature 5400rpm and 7200 spindle speeds, respectively, as well as 32MB buffer and Serial ATA-600 interface. Both models come with what Hitachi GST calls HiVERT technology, which reduces power consumption while the drive is idle, the main difference between the two is that the 5K1000.B delivers additional power savings over the Deskstar 7K1000.D due to its lowered spindle speed.
The Cinemastar range also comes in 5200rpm and 7200rpm versions but additionally it sports several A/V streaming optimizations for use in consumer electronics devices like por media players, DVRs, and more.
