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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.
Seagate ships single-platter, 1.8-inch, 60GB hard drive
Seagate announced late Sunday that it would immediately begin shipping its new Lyrion hard drive -- the corporate moniker for its single-platter 60GB 1.8-inch hard drive -- worldwide. The drive is only 5 millimeters (0.19 inches) thick and gets its write on using that snazzy perpendicular tech we've been hearing so much about. Also available in a 30GB size, the Lyrion includes "free fall protection" that will power down the motor and keep the heads away from the platter if the drive senses that it is indeed in peril. (We don't suggest that you test this feature.) We're not sure how much these drives will sell for, nor when we might start finding them embedded in various media players. But seriously -- iPod pico, anyone?
