Hitachi GST With 1TB Per 3.5-Inch Disk Platter
Former record at 750GB, 4TB HDD to arrive soon.
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on September 6, 2011 at 3:08 pmAs the first to ship a multi-disk 1TB HDD in 2007, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has achieved yet another 1TB milestone by squeezing it on a single disk. The new one terabyte per platter, one-disk, Deskstar 7K1000.D drive family is now shipping worldwide. Featured in both Deskstar and CinemaStar brands, Hitachi is providing a range of capacities, 250GB – 1TB, on both low RPM CoolSpin and 7,200 RPM platforms.
Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D
With the addition of the new Deskstar and CinemaStar drives, which are first in a family of 1TB/platter drives, Hitachi continues to offer a product lines for desktop and mobile solutions. For the ultra thin and light notebook market, Hitachi delivers the 7mm z-height Travelstar Z5K500 drives (636Gb/in²). And now, for high-performing desktop computers and the CE market, Hitachi presents the new 1TB/platter Deskstar and CinemaStar family drives (569 Gb/in²).
“The 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’s largest market volume,” said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing at Hitachi GST. “As we ship our first 1TB per platter drives, we know we’re delivering capacity, reliability and value to a broad customer base. Not only are we shipping our 1TB per platter drives to our own Branded Business, but we are shipping to our channel partners as well, enabling them to design affordable HDD-based solutions at attractive price points.”
Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D and Deskstar 5K1000.B
with Coolspin Technology
The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D hard drive family provides the combination of performance, capacity, reliability and value required for today’s power-friendly consumer and commercial desktop computers, as well as external storage solutions, PC gaming systems, and desktop RAID arrays. Built using Hitachi’s 7,200 RPM platform, the drive delivers speed with a 6Gb/second Serial ATA interface and a 32MB cache buffer.
With eighth-generation power management technology and power-saving HiVERT innovations, this new drive provides up to 15 percent idle power savings over the previous model. Hitachi is also offering the new Deskstar 5K1000.B drive family with low power and cool operation. With CoolSpin technology, along with other Hitachi power management techniques, the Deskstar 5K1000.B delivers a 23 percent idle power savings over the Deskstar 7K1000.D, enabling a new generation of cool and quiet personal computing devices. The low power profile of both the Deskstar 7K1000.D and the Deskstar 5K1000.B drives helps reduce overall system power requirements for developing energy-efficient systems.
Hitachi CinemaStar 7K1000.D and 5K1000.B
HD, IPTV and Internet TV growth are driving the demand for cost-effective storage-based TVs and DVRs for consumers to record, playback, surf and stream their favorite movies and shows from their TVs. In the CE space today, approximately 90 percent of HDD demand is for single-disk capacities ranging from 250GB to 500GB, which can be served by Hitachi’s new 1TB/platter CinemaStar family. The new CinemaStar 7K1000.D and 5K1000.B product lines give customers a dedicated 3.5-inch family that delivers a balance of performance, power, acoustics and capacities that is optimized for this market. With more than 10 features and technologies optimized for A/V streaming, the new CinemaStar 7K1000.D and 5K1000.B offer capacity and RPM choices for DVRs, set-top boxes and video surveillance systems. All 1TB/platter 7,200 RPM and Coolspin versions ship with a 32MB cache buffer and a 6Gb/s SATA interface.
The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D and 5K1000.B CoolSpin versions are shipping to distributors and channel partners. CinemaStar drives are expected to ship in the Fall.
Comments
The record capacity for 3.5-inch desktop HDDs is 3TB using a
maximum of 750GB per disk. Three companies offer currently 3TB units:
HGST, Seagate and WD. HGST is just beating this record with 1TB per platter (with two heads) or 569Gb/in² in maximum areal density onto one 3.5-inch platter. Note that Seagate also breaks the 1TB areal density barrier unveiling last March GoFlex Desk external (only) HDDs at 1TB per platter with 625Gb/in² and 3TB total capacity. Samsung demonstrated in March 2011 at CeBIT 1TB of data
per platter into a two-disk HDD model.
HGST and Seagate are proving that 3.5-inch HDDs with 4TB capacity will arrive soon using four platters at 1TB each, and maybe 5TB with five disks.
Hitachi has chosen for the moment to offer only two one-disk versions,
both of them weighing 450grams and in a standard 3.5-inch form factor
(26.1mm z-height), with the choice of 5,400rpm or 7,200rpm rotational
speed.
A good idea could be to design a thinner version with an height much
lower than 26.1mm. It's technically feasible. In the 2.5-inch, HDD
makers like HGST an Seagate offer HDDs with 7mm z-height below the
9.5mm standard.
No price has been revealed but these HDDs will probably have an
excellent price per gigabyte that will be appreciated by integrators of
CE products - becoming a huge market for disk drives - or low-end PCs.
It will also help to compete with threatening SSDs.
If WD succeeds in acquiring HGST shortly, it will be interesting to
follow WD's strategy in this field: opting to design its own 1TB/disk platform
or adopting the new HGST's design.