Hitachi - Wheels for 2.0 Applications

2007 International CES, Las Vegas –The latest news via Business Wire

What were we thinking? We have reported and reviewed dozens of products and applications without considering (much) the hardware necessary to carry out our web 2.0 dreams. Movie downloads, P2P interfacing, advanced gaming, local web storage, and so much more are memory intensive. The latest news from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies proves that some companies are still out there trying to stay one step ahead. Hitachi just created the world’s first Terabyte Hard Drive! That’s Tera-byte!

In the new digitalized home and work spaces, the lines between our environments will eventually blur. As we integrate our lifestyles; combining communication, entertainment, work activities, and other data streams, the necessity for more reliable higher capacity devices will become more evident. A few years ago, we could not really imagine the advances or growth in these sectors of our lives. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and similar companies will essentially provide the wheels for our new integrated community.

These new drives represent Hitachi’s commitment to high quality, state of the art storage media. Two distinct versions of the drives will be released in order to tailor the capabilities to the segment utilizing them. The two segments targeted are:

     Gaming and High Performance PC’s (Deskstar 7K1000)

• SATA 3.0Gb/s and PATA-133 interfaces
• Ramp load for increased shock protection
• Three low-power idle modes for boosted power efficiency

     DVR Applications (Cinemastar 7K100)

• Adaptive error recovery with SMART command-optimizing video streaming/picture quality
• Smooth Stream Technology to optimizing for audio/video applications requiring reliable storage
• and “Bedroom quiet” acoustics

The Deskstar and Cinemastar products will be joined by a third version low duty drive for enterprise solutions in the second quarter of this year. The new drives are 7200 RPM Parallel-ATA/Serial-ATA units built on the industry’s most reliable perpendicular magnetic recording technology. The Cinemastar is geared for increased HD media storage and the capacity demands that are 4 to 5 times higher than standard digital media.

This new technology represents a milestone in the data storage industry. To put this into perspective, I just installed an 80GB additional 7200rpm drive on my computer, as the old 80GB drive was getting full. So I now have a storage capacity of 160GB. A 1 Terabyte drive has 6 times the capacity in less space. Even newer PC’s typically only come with 160-320GB drives installed. One of the most significant aspects of Hitachi’s new product is the cost per unit of storage capacity. At $399, the cost per Gig of storage space is only about 40 cents. I paid about $60 (on sale, older model) for 80GB, or about $.75 per GB on an outdated drive!

We cannot venture on to the new super highway without good tires, can we? I expect a host of new hardware releases as we venture further into this phenomena we call web 2.0. It is exciting territory we are entering, and in a short while I think we will see detractors fall by the way side. Perhaps we will all pass them, as they try to change their flat tires! Please review Hitachi’s specifications on these new monster drives, as space prohibited me including all technical specs.