Aimed firmly at the DVR market, Hitachi has launched a couple of new HDDs, namely the CinemaStar 7K1000.B and the CinemaStar 5K320. The 7K1000.B is similar to its DeskStar namesake, yet this unit has been optimised for continuous operation by tweaking its drive mechanics to use three idle modes. The 3.5 inch SATA drive has also been toughened up to withstand the fanless environment found inside DVRs. It spins at 7,200 rpm and is available in a range of capacities from 160 GB thru to a 1 TB big boy!

The 320 GB capacity CinemaStar 5K320 also boasts the toughened touch and optimisation found on the 7K1000.B. However it has also has had CoolSpin technology added to its repertoire to make it one of the most energy efficient and quiet 3.5 inch drives out there - well, according to Hitachi anyway.

Apart from the refinements required for DVR usage, these units are not much different from their DeskStar siblings, so for the average Joe they may get a ‘So what?’ comment, but for the improvement of DVR specs we give them a big thumbs up.

No prices as yet with the 7K1000.B out in August and the 5K320 on show from September.

Featured tags: CinemaStar 5K320 cinemastar 7K1000.B DVR hdd hitachi

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Hitachi have just announced their latest 1TB hard disk drive, the Deskstar 7K1000.B, claiming it’s the first in a new generation of terabyte hard disk drives. So what’s so new about this second generation of drives, well according to Hitachi’s press release their latest offering

provides an exceptional blend of power efficiency and performance, making it an ideal solution for power-friendly consumer and commercial PCs

So basically they’ve managed to reduce the drive’s power usage whilst maintaining read/write speeds. Here are a few more specs for you to consume.

* spin speed of 7,200 rpm
* 1TB storage
* 3 Gb/s SATA interface
* 32 MB buffer
* 1.2 million hours Mean Time Between Failure
* Rotational Vibration Safeguard

Hitachi claim that this new drive, whilst in idle mode will provide a power saving of up to 43% on first gen drives through its three disk design. Each disk can 375 GB of zeroes and ones. Pretty impressive, eh? Good timing too, considering all the hoopla over the ‘power savings’ of SSDs at the moment.

Source: PC Launches

Featured tags: 3.5 inch HDD hdd hitachi

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Whilst Hitachi’s latest CinemaStar HDD offerings, the 2.5 inch C5K320 and 3.5 inch 5K500, are primarily for use in DVRs they can of course be slotted into existing PCs and laptops. According to Hitachi the 5K500’s main feature is

Cool, quiet, power-efficient storage for digital video applications

which the 5K500 achieves using Hitachi’s CoolSpin motor design.

CoolSpin technology is a low-power motor design that requires less power to spin up the drive than most 3.5-inch hard drives

As well as CoolSpin the 5K500 offers the following bells and whistles

* 3.5 inch form factor
* 500 GB storage
* SATA 3Gbps interface
* 3.2 W idle power
* 4 data heads and 2 data disks
* 8 MB buffer
* 929 Mbps media transfer rate
* 101.6 x 147 x 26.1 mm

As for the C5K320, which comes in a handy range of capacities from 120 GB up to 320 GB, it sports Hitachi’s SmoothStream technology

supports the ATA-7 streaming command set, and SCT provides time-limited error recovery and thermal monitoring capabilities. CinemaStar C5K320 is offered with silent-seek acoustics for ultra-quiet operation.

Here are the rest of the specs

* 1.5 Gbps SATA interface
* 120, 160, 250, 320 GB capacities
* 8 MB data buffer
* 5,400 rpm
* 729 Mbps media transfer rate
* 70 x 100 x 9.5 mm
* 102 g

Unfortunately no news on the price tag, but at least it’s good to see HDD manufacturers trying to enhance our media storage options. These suckers will be available in June.

Source: Hitachi

Featured tags: 2.5 inch HDD 3.5 inch HDD DVR hdd hitachi

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With the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD war remaining quiet for the moment, which is surprising as the season of goodwill to all manufacturers is not that far away, the hard drive boys have picked up their swords and are preparing to do battle. Not long after Hitachi announced their intention to be producing 4 TB 3.5 inch hard drives by 2011, Western Digital have picked up the challenge and announced they’ll be producing 3 TB models by 2010. Here’s the techie blurb from WD

Following WD’s growing investments in technology the past five years, the company achieved 520 Gb/in2 using its own perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR)/tunneling magneto-resistive (TuMR) head technology. This level of density produces a 3.5-inch hard drive storing 640 GB-per-platter and single hard drive capacities as large as 3 TB. Based on the industry’s current density growth rate of more than 40 percent per year, those capacities are expected to be available in the 2010 timeframe.

The WD announcement was made at the Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Conference in Tokyo after it was demoed earlier in California and whilst it does smack of a ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ mentality or more accurately ‘mine’s earlier than yours’ it has to be good news for the consumer, doesn’t it?

At least it’s good to see a couple of hardware manufacturers squaring off in the storage arena, whilst all is quiet on the hi-def front.

Source: Western Digital PR

Featured tags: hdd hitachi western digital

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The boffins over at Hitachi have knocked together a quad layer Blu-Ray disc capable of holding up to 100 GB of glorious movie action. Whilst 100 GB Blu-Ray discs are nothing new, the good news about the Hitachi version is that it is the first 100 GB BR disc to only require a firmware update to existing Blu-Ray players to handle the extra capacity sported by these discs.

There’s still one glitch in the system to sort out regarding stabilising signal quality, but once the boffins have figured that out look for a commercial rollout not long after and of course the deal-clinching price tag on these suckers.

Hitachi are also currently researching an eight layer (octo layer?) disc which boosts the capacity up to a massive 200 GB. So it looks like the boffins won’t be unemployed any time soon.

Anyway the game continues with no end in sight, as disc capacity increases, at a rate possibly surpassing demand judging by the sales or lack of sales of hi def movies, however the increase in media capacity drives the storage manufacturers to squeeze more zeros and ones into their boxes. Also the processor guys have to ramp up the grunt at their end to handle larger files and of course memory sticks have to increase their size appropriately too.

Do we really need all this extra media capacity, processor power etc? Are we becoming more savvy in our entertainment and data needs and these advances are only keeping up with an existing consumer demand or are the manufacturers trying to strip every single hard-earned penny from wallets? Let me know what you think.

Source: Electronista

Featured tags: blu ray blu ray disc hitachi

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Hitachi have unleashed a new range of external USB hard drives, with a 250GB portable and a massive 1TB, err, non-portable version. Smaller versions are also available with the 160GB portable rocking in at US$140. All the drives feature USB 2.0 connectivity with the portable versions sucking their power from your PC.

I decided to do a little head to head comparison of the 160GB portable against cheaper competitors to see what I was getting for my dollar.

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Featured tags: hard drive hitachi portable

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With TDK announcing its 200GB Blu-ray disc last August, Maxell (owned by Hitachi) have now announced the development of their own 200GB mutha disc (NOT pictured on the right). These big boys have eight layers of data instead of the standard one increasing a Blu-ray’s capacity from a mere 50GB to 200.

With such storage capacity hard drive backups will become a breeze and they’ll be enough video on one disc to keep a hardened couch potato happy for quite a while! Maxell are estimating that the discs will be commercially available sometime in 2009.

Source: i4u

Featured tags: blu ray disc hitachi maxell

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