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Hitachi unveils its second generation 1TB HDD

Hitachi has announced the second generation of its one terabyte Deskstar hard drive. The drive is called the Deskstar 7K1000.B and will ship worldwide in July at undisclosed pricing. Hitachi claims the new drive is the most energy efficient 7200 rpm 1TB hard drive in the world.

The drive uses three platters and improves idle power consumption up to 43% over the first generation 1TB drive from Hitachi. The drive also supports bulk data encryption (BDE) as an optional feature for users. The drive delivers 375Gb of storage per platter.

Deskstar 7K1000.B features optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) that uses an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to deliver the strongest commercially available data security protection. Data is scrambled using a key as it is written to the disk then descrambled with the key as it is retrieved. BDE also speeds and simplifies the drive re-deployment process. By deleting the encryption key, the data on the drive is rendered unreadable, thereby eliminating the need for time-consuming data-overwrite.

The drives ship with a 32MB buffer, five-year warranty, 1.2 million hour Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS) technology for robust performance in multi-drive environments.

“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,” said Larry Swezey, director, Consumer and Commercial HDD Marketing and Strategy, 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. This will allow us to take the next step in making terabyte technology available and affordable in the personal storage, consumer electronics, desktop and enterprise segments.”