Hitachi’s latest desktop hard drive, the 3TB Deskstar 7K3000, has made a silent appearance on the company’s website. The drive has five platters (600GB each) and boasts a 7200RPM spindle speed, 6Gbp/s SATA interface, and a 64MB cache.
Hitachi’s latest desktop hard drive, the 3TB Deskstar 7K3000, has made a silent appearance on the company’s website. The drive has five platters (600GB each) and boasts a 7200RPM spindle speed, 6Gbp/s SATA interface, and a 64MB cache.
The competing Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB drive uses just four platters by comparison (750GB each). In the past, Hitachi has introduced hard drives with more platters than competitors but priced them lower as a result.
Hitachi claims the 7K3000 is up to 27% faster than ‘previous generation products’, presumably the 7K2000; the company says the drive has up to a 145MB/s transfer rate.
There will be three models in the Deskstar 7K3000 series:
- HDS723030ALA640 (3TB)
- HDS723020BLA642 (2TB)
- HDS723015BLA642 (1.5TB)
No pricing or availability information exists yet; expect Hitachi to make a formal announcement of the drive in the coming weeks. The company may be delaying its official announcement due to the simple fact that many Windows-based computers will have trouble seeing drives larger than 2TB. It is important to note that the 7K3000 does not ship with an AHCI-compliant host bus adapter (HBA) like the Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB, which would allow legacy BIOS motherboards and GPT-ready operating systems to properly support large drives. Motherboards with UEFI support do not need an HBA to correctly recognize the drive.
Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 Product Page
Update – 7K3000 and 5K3000 Announced
Update 4/18/2011 – Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 Review Posted
