Hitachi has started shipping a 3.5-inch hard disk drive with a nominal capacity of 1 terabyte (TB). Available now at online retailers for $450, the 7K1000 has five platters spinning at 7,200 rpm, 10 heads, 32MB of buffer cache, and a 3.0Gb/s Serial-ATA (SATA) interface.

The 7K1000 is touted as the first “1TB” drive. (What's a terabyte?)

The 7K1000 uses PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording) technology, with “relaxed areal density for greater reliability,” the company said. Other touted features include:

• Ramp load/unload design to increase shock protection
• Thermal fly-height control (TFC) to maintain a consistent fly-height during the read/write process
• Compact, low-mass femto air-bearing sliders
• Three low-power idle modes
• “Silent seek acoustics”
• 8.5ms read, or 14ms in “silent” mode
• 9.2ms write, or 15ms in “silent” mode
• 4.17ms latency
• 2.9 bels idle sound output, 3.0 bels silent seek, and 3.2 bels normal seek
• 1070Mbps media transfers (300MBps interface speed)
• Some sort of “host/drive authentication” for “hardware security”
• Operates from -40 to 70 degrees C
• 26.1mm high (just over an inch)

Shinjiro Iwata, CMO of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, stated, “Consumers' desire to create and share digital entertainment is the primary accelerator for capacity and performance increases in desktop PC hard drives.”

Availability

The 7K1000 has an MSRP of $400, but may sell for more than that in the short term, due to novelty. For example, it is now available at CDW, priced at $450.

A four-platter, 750GB version of the drive will also be available.

 
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