5K500
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Hitachi shows off pair of new CinemaStar hard drives
Just after Hitachi President Kazuo Furukawa announced that the company is digging in with its flat panel and hard drive business lines, two new CinemaStar hard drives get a June release date. First up is the 2.5-inch, 320GB CinemaStar C5K320, with SmoothStream to keep your video flowing, um, smoothly. If you need more capacity, there's the 3.5-inch, 500GB CinemaStar 5K500 (not to be confused with the 2.5-inch TravelStar 5K500), which is Hitachi's first drive with CoolSpin to limit current draw. We've never had a problem putting standard desktop hard drives to multimedia use, but limiting heat/power draw and acoustic noise are two area that you should factor in for drives destined for living room or bedroom placement; so if poring over specs like bels and Watts isn't your thing, maybe consider an "approved" video drive like these.
LaCie snags Hitachi's 500GB 5K500, stuffs it into Rugged Hard Disk
LaCie's bright orange Rugged Hard Disk hasn't changed much externally since it surfaced over two years ago, but what used to buy you 160GB will now land you a full half-terabyte with dough left over for several In-N-Out runs. The latest Rugged drive packs Hitachi's 500GB Travelstar 5K500 and still maintains the scratch-resistant aluminum shell and shock-resistant rubber bumper. As for ports, you'll find a USB 2.0-only edition or a more versatile iteration that includes USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 sockets. Either flavor comes bundled with the company's Setup Assistant and backup software, and if you're tired of waiting for 1TB in your pocket, you can make do with this one for just $299.99 / $399.99 depending on your choice of interface(s).
Hitachi's 5K500, E5K500 hit the mythical 500GB mark for laptops -- with a catch
Oh, how long laptop drives have awaited to reach that magical 500GB / 1TB mark for single and dual drive machines, respectively. Well, today, thanks to Hitachi, road warriors everywhere can find sweet release from their so-very-cramped Toshiba / Western Digital 320GB drives with a new Hitachi 5K500 or E5K500-equipped machine. Except there's just one catch. This jump in storage didn't come from advancements in storage technology -- it came from Hitachi cramming another platter onto the stack. More platters equal more thickness, and the 5K500 and E5K500 are 3mm thicker than your industry-standard 9.5mm thick 2.5-inch drive. In other words, Hitachi copped out in the race to 500GB and created a non-standard sized drive that more than likely won't fit in your laptop or external enclosure.Furthermore, while they'll start at $400 (the E5K500 will likely cost a bit more, it's the enterprise drive with bulk data encryption and is rated for 24/7 access) when they're available in February, you won't be buying them; even assuming your device is engineered with enough room to accommodate the drives' expanded girth, Hitachi doesn't intend to sell them except to OEMs for systems integration. First on the chopping block: Asus, and its M50 and M70 laptops, which will be getting dual-drive configs for a mobile terabyte. One more glamor shot after the break.
