Hitachi Delivers Performance Without Sacrifice in New 7,200 RPM Travelstar HDD

Hitachi Global Storage today began shipment of its fourth-generation 7,200 RPM mobile hard drive, the Travelstar 7K320.

The new drive delivers 60 percent higher capacity than its predecessor, while improving application performance by 12 percent and power consumption by 22 percent. The drive’s quiet acoustics improve the experience of watching movies or listening to music on a notebook PC.

The 2.5-inch drive is offered with optional Bulk Data Encryption for users wanting increased data security. Hitachi also plans to ship enhanced-availability (EA) models, designed to provide high-capacity storage for low-duty-cycle, 24x7 applications.

The performance attributes of the Travelstar 7K320 allow consumers to opt for a full-featured notebook or compact desktop model, while still achieving all the capacity and performance typically associated with a more traditional desktop PC. The new drives bring forth a number of essential features that are in strong demand from manufacturers of notebooks, compact desktops, gaming systems, blade servers and video surveillance systems. Some of these attributes include best-in-class operating shock protection of 400Gs, 5,400 RPM-equivalent power consumption and quiet acoustics.

“As operating systems have grown more complex, users have struggled with an overall decrease in system performance,” said Larry Swezey, director, Consumer and Commercial HDD, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. “Solid state drives (SSD) have yet to deliver an overall increase in speed, and certainly not at an affordable price. The 7,200 RPM speed of the Travelstar 7K320 provides an improved overall experience, at the capacities users want and at a far lower cost than SSD.”

Gartner is predicting worldwide mobile PC shipments will surpass global desk-based PC shipments in the second half of 2009. This evolution has been driven by the ever improving performance-for-price of mobile PCs, relative to desktop PCs. Hitachi believes the greater availability of 7,200 RPM hard drives will help accelerate this trend, as more users realize the benefits of combining desktop-class performance with the convenience and portability of a notebook.

The Travelstar 7K320 features optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE), a capability that Hitachi has offered in its mobile hard drives since the start of 2007. Previously, data on a hard drive could be protected either through software-based encryption or a system-level password. Hard drive level encryption provides improved performance and a higher level of security than any of the previously available methods.

When employing bulk data encryption, data is scrambled using a key as it is being written to the disk and then descrambled with the key as it is retrieved. Thus, data encryption at the hard-drive level represents a more sophisticated approach of securing users’ data and is generally considered to be virtually impenetrable. Another benefit is that it speeds and simplifies the drive re-deployment process. By deleting the encryption key, the data on the drive is rendered unreadable, thereby eliminating the need for time-consuming data-overwrite.

BDE models ship exclusively with a SATA 1.5Gb/s interface.

Source: Hitachi

Related stories:

Hitachi Delivers New Power-Efficient Terabyte Hard Drive
Hitachi Global Storage has announced today the Deskstar 7K1000.B, the world’s most energy-efficient 7,200 RPM one terabyte (1TB) hard drive.
Hitachi Ships Quarter-terabyte Laptop Hard Drive
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is today announcing volume shipment of the industry’s highest-performing and lowest power-consuming laptop hard disk drive at a quarter terabyte of capacity.
Hitachi Ships World's Speediest Notebook Hard Drive with Encryption Technology
Hitachi Global Storage is today announcing volume shipment of the industry’s highest-capacity, highest-performing notebook hard drive with new optional data encryption technology.
palmOne's New LifeDrive Features 4GB Hard Drive
For those who demand more, palmOne introduces the all new LifeDrive mobile manager. With a huge 4GB hard drive and built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless support, you can easily carry all the essentials of your busy life and use them as you will. Word, Excel and PowerPoint docs from your desktop computer, 300 songs, 2 hours of video, 1,000 vacation photos, and more, are always with you. With support for POP, IMAP and Exchange email accounts, you can stay on top of your email at any of the thousands of Wi-Fi hotspots around the world.
Review: Tiny flash drives improve their security
(AP) -- Flash memory drives, the size of your thumb, are dirt cheap and offer gigabytes of storage. It's tempting to fill one of them with important computer files, clip it to a key chain and hit the road.
Transcend Introduces their 64GB Jet Flash V20 USB Flash Drive
Transcend Information, Inc. is a leading manufacture of flash memory products. The V20 is small enough to fit into your shirt pocket and has semi-transparent color-band that lights up when in use. With 64 GB of storage space, the V20 makes it ideal for backing up music files, videos, digital photos and just about anything else that you may need to backup.
Hitachi Shows Technical Feasibility Of Perpendicular Magnetic Recording At 610 Gbit/in2
Hitachi, Ltd. announced today that it has demonstrated the technical feasibility of magnetic recording at 610 Gbit/in2. This considerably exceeds the previously demonstrated capabilities of current perpendicular recording technology found in mass-production hard disk drive (HDD) products. These results hold the potential for a 2.5x increase in the storage capacities of current-generation HDDs.
Samsung Electronics unveils new 256GB solid state drive
Samsung Electronics announced today that it has developed the world’s fastest, 2.5-inch, 256 Gigabyte (GB) multi-level cell (MLC) based solid state drive (SSD) using a SATA II interface at the fifth annual Samsung Mobile Solution Forum held at the Westin Taipei Hotel. Samsung’s new 256GB SSD is also the thinnest drive with the largest capacity to be offered with a SATA II interface.

News discussion:

Electronic Devices news