Hitachi introduces second-gen 1TB Deskstar 7K1000.B hard drive

Remember the day you drooled all over your keyboard when Hitachi introduced a 1TB internal hard drive? Yeah, like a year and a half ago? The outfit's most recent HDD announcement isn't likely to have nearly the same effect, but those who skipped the first-gen version in order to get a more refined product the second go 'round will surely be delighted. Today marks the debut of the 1TB Deskstar 7K1000.B, which goes down as "the world's most energy-efficient 7,200RPM one-terabyte hard drive." Said drive features a new three-disk design which improves idle power consumption up to 43% over its 1TB predecessor, but unfortunately, there's no telling how long you'll have to wait to actually buy this currently unpriced overlord of storage.

[Via PCLaunches]

[Smudgy @ Jul 9th 2008 2:08PM]

How long until it's in a bargain bin near me?

[YesHone @ Jul 9th 2008 4:18PM]

Just visit the bargain bin and get a Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB drive....

[ddub @ Jul 9th 2008 2:16PM]

Why is it taking so long for them to pass 1TB drives? Is there some kind of barrier like the speed of light?

[waiownsyou @ Jul 9th 2008 2:40PM]

I like the way that makes no sense.

[ddub @ Jul 9th 2008 2:41PM]

It made sense in my head.

[Tim @ Jul 9th 2008 3:04PM]

yeah, I always wonder that - lets say at some point they could get a bit out of every atom on the surface of each platter - whats that theoretical limit of space on a platter? Would it even be possible to magnetize one atom at a time? Inquiring minds want to know . . .

[rock99rock @ Jul 9th 2008 4:00PM]

Well, the 1.2TB version of the 320GB platter was supposed to emerge, but i believe that time has come and gone. I believe someone announced a 2TB drive for 2009.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/30/seagate-to-jump-into-the-ssd-games-2tb-spinners-planned-for-nex/

Seagate. Sweetness.

[Goontron @ Jul 9th 2008 4:06PM]

Mr. Tim,

What you are speaking of is on the quantum scale, nothing like the physical operations of hard disks today. Quantum computing will store data in a similar manner as you are describing.

But good old electromagnetic drives can only charge small areas of a disk (sectors). The biggest limit to drive space is making those sectors smaller and closer together. Problem is, the closer together they are, the more they have a chance of affecting the charge of nearby sectors, causing a cascade.

[ddub @ Jul 9th 2008 5:11PM]

Is it just me or is everything cool coming out in 2009 and nothing in 2008. And don't mention the iphone.

[loosely_coupled @ Jul 9th 2008 5:24PM]

Tim, you should read about perpendicular recording, because although it was just one step to increasing densities, most articles that explain the technique offer a lot of background on the whole topic of increasing bit density on HDDs and the quantum physics phenomena that start popping up at such small scales...

[dudness @ Jul 9th 2008 2:18PM]

How long before we see higher than 1TB capacity drives?

[ddub @ Jul 9th 2008 2:40PM]

dude... thats what I said.

[YesHone @ Jul 9th 2008 4:18PM]

No, you asked why it's taking so long,
for which an expected answer might be: Cause Light has a barrier

Where Dudness asked "How long before..."

Which an expected answer might be: 5TB coming around the corner!

[ddub @ Jul 9th 2008 5:17PM]

YesHone,

It was a joke, I just really wanted to reply to him that started with dude. Anyways, it was basically the same question, we just asked at the same time. The reply 5TB coming around the corner would apply to both questions.

[marc @ Jul 9th 2008 2:32PM]

This will be a nice choice for mass storage as long as it performs comparable to their first 1TB offering.

[Stan Winsome @ Jul 9th 2008 2:47PM]

The Deskstar plans are not in the main computer....

[OfflinePK @ Jul 9th 2008 2:53PM]

nifty

[J. Ortiz @ Jul 9th 2008 3:04PM]

I'd like to see benchmarks on how it compares to WD's WD Caviar Green 1TB drive in terms of power savings.

@ddub & dudness:
Hitachi is working on a 5TB drive that is projected to be ready by 2010.

[mike @ Jul 9th 2008 3:04PM]

too bad Samsung already has this in the Spinpoint... three platters... a full bore 7200 with power savings cuz it's 3 platters... 1TB total... and now they have a greener version... meaning less power and a bit slower.... so... i hope no one held their breath. oh and you can get it online for $170ish.

mine is awesome and it has no problems... despite what some may think about samsung making HD

[Joe @ Jul 9th 2008 3:17PM]

Deathstar? I don't care how long it's been, no thanks...

[Za @ Jul 9th 2008 9:41PM]

The Deathstars were 40GB and 60GB...just like Hyundai made shit cars in 1992. The Hitachis now are right up there with the best. Also, they are Hitachi, not IBM any longer, so different company, really. And 60GB vs 1,000GB...genius.

[rock99rock @ Jul 9th 2008 3:57PM]

/still_not_funny

[OfflinePK @ Jul 9th 2008 4:06PM]

Nah man the real question is can it run crysis?

xD

[ShadowKain @ Jul 9th 2008 4:10PM]

Ill stick to Seagate for my 1TB goodness.

[YesHone @ Jul 9th 2008 4:24PM]

"This Just In: Hitachi Manages to FINALLY Catch up with Samsung"

[Rick @ Jul 9th 2008 5:13PM]

I think a big part of why we haven’t seen an increase in capacity is two fold.
1. Aerial density can be a tricky thing. Try to squeeze those bits too close together and you can start getting errors. I think disk manufacturers are pushing not so much capacity as reliability.
2. Also, and I may be mistaken here, but all hard drive manufacturers have to spend big money on retooling their manufacturing facilities every time there’s a major bump in aerial density. Not only do they need to redesign how the platters are made, but they have to adjust all of the other components inside the drive. Plus they need to retool all of their QA test machines and a handful of other things most consumers don’t think about.

[mike @ Jul 9th 2008 11:36PM]

they might be JUST catching up but i bet you the reason for the long wait from hitachi was to make sure theyre drives, you know, WORK, and not have such high failure rates like the samsungs

[bigazzknocks @ Jul 9th 2008 5:17PM]

Re: filling atoms with data. Just look at the human brain. It can store at least a few TB of data, right? Or perhaps a few dozen or a few hundred TB? Which raises the question: can the brain actually store MORE than one bit per atom?

[saintchuck @ Jul 9th 2008 6:37PM]

The human brain apparently can store less than 5TB of data according to articles concerning Hitachi's 5TB drive coming in ~2010. Where the brain excels is being able to access the data from a 3-D storage device while harddrives are 2-D devices. The brain also has the upper hand in controllers (the heart for women and the penis for men) that allow it to be fault tolerant and high throughput.

The brain doesn't store more than 1 bit per atom. It is made up of multiple billions of atoms, of which, only a portion are used for data (memory).