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Hitachi outs a pair of 4TB HDDs for your storing pleasure
We here at Engadget believe that, while keeping data in the cloud is certainly convenient, one can never have too much local storage space. Hitachi shares our enthusiasm for commodious HDDs, and has rolled out a pair of 4TB drives to keep all your movies, music, and photos close to home. For those wanting to up the ante in their desktop machine, the Deskstar 5K4000 should do the trick with a SATA 6Gb/s connection and 32MB buffer. Its stablemate, the Touro Desk External Drive, brings the same HDD in an onyx enclosure and connects to your computer via USB 3.0 -- plus you get 3GB of cloud storage free from Hitachi. (Who says you can't eat your cake and have it too?) The 5K4000 is available now for a penny under $400, while the Touro will cost $420 once it hits the market in January.
Western Digital, Seagate and Hitachi square off in 3TB hard drive roundup
We've seen 3TB hard drives trickling onto the market for the better part of a year, but it's only now that we're seeing more UEFI-equipped motherboards that can actually handle all that storage capacity. So, the benchmarking wizards over at HotHardware decided now would be a fine time to pit a few of 'em against each other, rounding up models from the likes of Western Digital, Seagate and Hitachi and subjecting them to a grueling battery of 28 tests. We'll leave it to you to peruse the scores, but suffice to say the Seagate Barracuda XT swept about half the benchmarks, and notched a close second the rest of the time. But is it worth spending an extra $30 over Western Digital's consistently trailing Caviar Green? We'll leave that to you and your wallet.
Hitachi Deskstar and CinemaStar drives dish up 1TB on a single platter
No self-respecting drive head wants to travel further than is strictly necessary to fetch that bloody MP3 you just clicked. That's why Hitachi's effort to cram 1TB onto a single platter with a cosy 569 gigabits per square inch makes a lot of sense: it reduces the distance between chunks of data, thereby improving the HDD's sequential transfer rates while also lowering its calorie consumption. You'll find these ultra-dense discs in the new 1TB Deskstar 7k1000.D and 5k1000.B models, which started shipping today, as well as in the CinemaStar range coming later this fall. Sure, Seagate got there first, but we'll happily overlook that fact as soon as Hitachi decides to serve up a five-platter 5TB whopper to go with our lettuce. Full specs in the PR after the break.
Hitachi ships Deskstar 7K3000 and 5K3000 HDDs, 3TB XL external drive
Three. It's a magical number, you know? Hitachi GST sure feels that way, and the company is today introducing a trio of three terabyte storage solutions. First up is the 3TB Deskstar internal HDD kit, which apparently shatters the 2.2TB capacity limit on 32-bit Windows XP systems without any extra hardware required. For those who've graduated to more modern systems, there's the new 3TB Hitachi XL USB 2.0, an external archive solution designed to be sat horizontally or vertically and operate with both PC and Mac platforms. Lastly, the company is finally shipping the 7K3000 and 5K3000 internal hard drives to OEMs and channel partners, but the 3TB version of the latter won't hit until next quarter. As for pricing? All's quiet on the western front... save for that XL, anyway -- that one's going for $249.99 (3TB), $169.99 (2TB) and $99.99 (1TB).
Hitachi debuts 7,200RPM 3TB Deskstar 7K3000 hard drive
Hitachi was the first to roll out a 7,200RPM, 3.5-inch 2TB hard drive, and it looks like it's now done it again at the 3TB level. That comes in the form of the company's new Deskstar 7K3000 model, which appears to not only be the first 7,200RPM 3TB drive hard around, but Hitachi's first drive with a 6Gbps SATA interface. Otherwise, the five-platter drive packs a 64MB cache buffer, an idle power draw of 6.8W, and what Hitachi describes as an eco-friendly, halogen-free design. Still no word on pricing or a release date, but The Inquirer surmises it'll cost somewhere in the neighborhood of £200, or $320.
Hitachi one-ups WD with industry-first 2TB 7200RPM 3.5-inch hard drive
Western Digital may have been first to launch a two terabyte 3.5-inch desktop hard drive, but it's Hitachi snagging the first 7200RPM 2TB crown (WD's entry hummed along at 5400RPM). Launched today, the 2TB Deskstar 7K2000 also features 32MB of cache and a 3Gbps SATA interface, but unfortunately, few other details are being disclosed. As in, there's no pricing or release information whatsoever. In related news, the company is also refreshing its 7200RPM Deskstar 7K1000.C line, which is available in sizes ranging from 160GB to 1TB. The full, completely unprovocative press release is just after the break.
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]
Hitachi announces energy-sipping Deskstar P7K500
For all the dollars and headlines that energy-saving CPUs garner, the hard drive is hardly a blip on the radar, but Hitachi claims to have the most efficient desktop drive yet in the Deskstar P7K500. The unit includes Hitachi's HiVERT technology for more efficient voltage conversion -- a method swiped from Hitachi's Travelstar laptop line -- and also features improved power management capabilities and "load / unload" tech to pull the heads off the drive for improved idle efficiency, with up to 44 percent power savings over traditional idle modes. Sizes range from 250GB to 500GB, and the drives should be available by the end of this year. No word on price.
Hitachi gets its one terabyte Deskstar 7K1000 drives out the door
We already crunched the numbers: 1TB is a lot. And if you've got $399 to blow, it can be all yours, with Hitachi saying Deskstar 7K1000 shipments have reached "critical mass" this month, after starting out scarce in March. We're guessing if you need one terabyte of data, in a 3.5-inch enclosure, spinning at 7,200 RPM and hooked up to your computer / RAID / iPod, you know who you are, so we won't spend any more time extolling the 7K1000's virtues -- quit your drooling and buy, buy, buy!
Hitachi breaks 1TB hard drive barrier with 7K1000
Well, we knew it was likely to happen in 2006 or 2007: Hitachi has fulfilled their promise and broken the 1TB drive barrier with the introduction of Hitachi's new Deskstar 7K1000 drive. Thanks to perpendicular recording and the average consumers' voracious appetite for porn totally legitimate data, Hitachi's new $400 drives -- available in SATA II or PATA 133 varieties, with differing speed modes, a 32MB buffer, quieting accoustics, SMART, and a 7200rpm spindle speed -- will hit the market running in Q1 of this year. Also announced: the CinemaStar 7K1000, a DVR-centric drive due in Q2 which wasn't fully detailed, but apparently has "adaptive error recovery", "Smooth Stream Technology to optimize the drive for audio/video applications requiring reliable storage", and other buzzy sounding stuff which just seems a lot like regular old drive features. We'll assume it's better tuned for high-throughput read / write performance, and leave it at that.
