Hitachi has announced it will be releasing green hard drives this quarter with up to 40% better idle power savings. The pricing will be comparable with non-green devices. Hitachi will remain at 7200rpm throughout all of its green products, which include 250 GB, 320 GB, 400 GB and 500 GB drives in parallel or serial ATA.
Hitachi"s 3.5-inch product marketing manager, said, "our specs are up to 59 percent better than the competition. We"ve reduced idle power by 40 percent as compared with our previous drives, the T7K500." In addition, she said that the new hard drives will consume a maximum of 7 watts.
Hitachi plans to implement their green technology model into all of their drives eventually. Hitachi plans to release the green drives this quarter. The P7K500 has a suggested retail price of $160, which is comparable to their current 500 GB deskstar product, the T7K500, which is selling online for about $130 on average.