Hitachi ushers in the “Tera Era” with its new 1TB Deskstar hard drive

by Stevie Smith - Jul 10 2008, 10:39

What would you do with 1TB of storage if it was suddenly installed on your computer? Well, while file-sharers everywhere gleefully mull over the prospect of hogging yet more bandwidth while attempted to fill such cavernous space, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is much more focused on lauding “the dawn of a new age in technology” courtesy of its 1TB Deskstar hard drive.

Dubbing its arrival as the start of the “Tera Era”, Hitachi GST (a wholly owned subsidiary for Tokyo-based Hitachi, Ltd) describes its second-generation Deskstar 7K1000.B as the world’s most energy-efficient 7,200RPM HDD and the perfect solution to the ever-increasing storage demands of modern computing.

Boasting 1,000GBs (1TB) of storage space, the second-generation Deskstar drive is aimed specifically at consumer and commercial PC systems and, according to Hitachi, utilises a new three-disk design (375GB per disk) to deliver up to 43 percent improved power consumption when compared to the original Deskstar -- which was launched in January of 2007 and is already considered one of the industry’s most efficient HDD units.

“Hitachi pioneered the industry’s first terabyte hard drive, so we are pleased to see how the market for high capacity desktop and laptop drives has grown substantially in the past year,” trumpeted Larry Swezey, director of Consumer and Commercial HDD Marketing and Strategy at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

“Now through the application of Hitachi's advanced head, media and channel technologies, we can bring to market a terabyte drive using only three disks that has advanced performance and best-in-class power consumption,” he added.

Beyond its obvious storage muscle, the new Deskstar drive also offers increased data loss and piracy protection thanks to the incorporation of Bulk Data Encryption (BDE), which is available as an optional peace-of-mind extra at purchase.

BDE protects stored data by scrambling it using a key as it is being written onto the drive, and then descrambling it with the same key whenever the data is retrieved by the user. By employing this particular data encryption process at the hard-drive level, users are presented with a much more sophisticated and near-impenetrable solution when it comes to protecting their personal data.

Adding further reinforcement to the Deskstar’s protection credentials, the new drive also uses an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), which has been certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to deliver the strongest commercially available data security protection. Only hard drives with this certification are eligible to be used by the U.S. government for national security applications.

Topping out at the 1TB marker, Hitachi’s second-generation 3.5-inch Deskstar line also comes in smaller sizes down to a more modest 160GB for those perhaps not looking to download the entire contents of the Library of Congress, while also enabling the tech company to expand its desire to make terabyte storage available and affordable to users in the personal storage, consumer electronics desktop and enterprise segments.

According to Hitachi GST’s scheduling the new Deskstat 7K1000.B will be shipping to customers throughout July.

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