HGST (Hitachi) has announced a new line of CinemaStar 2.5-inch hard drives for traditional and small form factor audio/video and consumer electronics markets. This is CinemaStar’s sixth generation, offering features and integrated technology for high-definition multi-stream DVRs, tuner-based set-top boxes as well as IPTV STBs, DVR-enabled TVs, audio systems and video surveillance systems.
HGST (Hitachi) has announced a new line of CinemaStar 2.5-inch hard drives for traditional and small form factor audio/video and consumer electronics markets. This is CinemaStar’s sixth generation, offering features and integrated technology for high-definition multi-stream DVRs, tuner-based set-top boxes as well as IPTV STBs, DVR-enabled TVs, audio systems and video surveillance systems.
Increased desire for on-demand entertainment is driving adoption of 2.5-inch hard disk drives. HGST’s new CinemaStar drives target the consumer electronics industry’s capacity sweet spot of 500GB, while offering a balance of performance, power and acoustics specifications suitable for a variety of CE devices. HGST cites reports from research firm IDC projecting that 2.5-inch HDD shipments for consumer electronics applications will grow at a worldwide compound annual rate of 21.8% from 2011-2016.
All CinemaStar drives feature HGST’s SmoothStream technology, which supports the ATA‑7 streaming command set. CinemaStar also offers SMART command transport (SCT) to provide time-limited error recovery and thermal monitoring capabilities for a longer system life. Together, the SCT protocol and SmoothStream minimize disruptions in stream delivery by adapting buffer management behavior and error recovery timing to match the characteristics of streaming applications.
The new CinemaStar line includes:
- CinemaStar Z7K500, the industry’s first one-disk, 7mm, 7200 RPM, 2.5-inch drive designed for A/V streaming. The 7mm CinemaStar Z7K500 drive can be a direct replacement for standard 9.5mm drives and is suited for slim TV integration and multi-tuner DVRs and STBs that let you stream, record, and watch programming at the same time. CinemaStar Z7K500 comes with a 6Gb/s SATA interface and a 32MB cache buffer, and is available in 500GB, 320GB and 250GB capacities.
- CinemaStar C5K1000, which offers 1TB capacity in a 2.5-inch form factor, meeting the needs of a growing number of CE OEMs who wish to offer video recording and playback features in a compact design, while still offering greater capacity. At 5400 RPM, the 9.5mm, 2.5-inch CinemaStar C5K1000 is available in 1TB, 750GB and 640GB capacities and specifies a read/write power consumption as low as 1.5W and a quiet operation at 2.4 bels idle.
- CinemaStar Z5K500, HGST’s second-generation, 7mm, 5400 RPM, 2.5-inch CE HDD, featuring a one-disk design with 500GB, 320GB and 250GB capacities with a slim 7mm design, power consumption as low as 1.4W during read/write operations, and 1.9 idle bels.
Availability
The HGST CinemaStar family is now shipping in limited quantities.
