Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) on Thursday said that it had begun shipments of the world’s first 2TB hard disk drive (HDD) with 7200 rounds per minute spindle speed. The new HDD is the world’s highest performance hard drive with the industry’s highest capacity, however, despite of expectations, the novelty does not utilize the leading-edge 500GB platters.

“The new Deskstar 7K2000 reflects our ongoing commitment to provide customers, channel partners and OEMs with proven, reliable solutions for enabling desktop computers, gaming systems, workstations and desktop RAID arrays,” said Brendan Collins, vice president of marketing at Hitachi GST.

Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 hard drive with 2TB capacity is based on five 400GB platters with 36.5GB areal density (per square inch), features 32MB data buffer, 7200rpm spindle speed, Serial ATA-300 interface. Hitachi declares 8.2ms typical read seek time for the novelty. The company claims that the 7K2000 consumes just about 7.5W. The Deskstar 7K2000 features 3.5” form-factor and is aimed at desktops and workstations.

According to Hitachi, usage of five-platter design is advantage since thanks to relaxed bit density and proven perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology it features improved reliability. Coupled with 7200rpm spindle speed, the 7K2000 may be the most advanced high-capacity hard drive available today.

“The demand for higher capacity disk drives is being fueled by the persistent growth of digital information generated by consumers and organizations alike. With the introduction of the industry's first 7200 RPM, 2TB HDD, Hitachi GST is building a tradition of time-to-market leadership for delivering the biggest and fastest disk drives for capacity-hungry PC users, given it was also the first HDD vendor to ship a 1TB HDD, the Deskstar 7K1000, in early 2007,” said John Rydning, research director for hard disk drives at IDC.

In addition to the new 2TB Deskstar 7K2000, Hitachi GST is also refreshing its high-volume desktop hard drive family. The new 7200 RPM Deskstar 7K1000.C family will deliver up to 500GB per platter, and will come in capacities of 160GB to 1TB, hitting the capacity and performance sweet spots for mainstream desktop applications. Like previous generations, both the 7K2000 and 7K1000.C Hitachi Deskstar drives feature industry-standard 512-byte sector formatting, a patented ramp load/unload design to increase shock protection, and Thermal Fly-height Control (TFC) to maintain a consistent fly-height during the read/write process for added data reliability.

Volume production and worldwide availability of the new Deskstar 7K1000.C will begin in the current quarter. Deskstar 7K2000 is shipping today.

Tags: Hitachi