When Hitachi released its first 1TB hard drive last year, the company had to squeeze in five platters to reach a terabyte. Today, Hitachi has unveiled the Deskstar 7K1000.B, a drive that delivers the same 1TB capacity with only three platters.
Both the 7K1000 and 7K1000.B feature 3.5" form factors, 7,200-RPM spindle speeds, 16MB buffers (8MB for lower-capacity derivatives), and 300MB/s Serial ATA interfaces with Native Command Queuing support. Where the 7K1000 contains 200GB platters, however, the 7K1000.B makes use of 375GB platters—dense enough that Hitachi could build a 1.125TB drive out of them.
The 7K1000.B is only launching with capacities of 160GB to 1TB, though. Hitachi bills the drive as the most energy-efficient 1TB offering in the world, with idle power consumption up to 43% lower than its predecessor (5.2W, to be precise). Lower-capacity 7K1000.B variants have 3.6-4.4W power consumption ratings, and they all have Bulk Data Encryption functionality as an option.
Together with the 7K1000.B, Hitachi is introducing the Deskstar E7K1000, a similar drive designed for "business critical storage systems." The E7K1000 is launching with 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB capacities, and it features a 32MB buffer, five-year warranty, and 1.2-million-hour mean time between failures (MTBF) rating. Both the Deskstar 7K1000.B and E7K1000 should ship some time this month, Hitachi says.
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