Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has started to ship its 1TB hard disk drives which were commercially introduced early this year. Hitachi"s Deskstar 7K1000 HDS721010KLA330 model features five 200GB platters and ten heads, has a 7200RPM motor as well as a 32MB data buffer. The manufacturer claims that the drive has a 8.5ms read seek time, a 9.2ms write seek time and 1070Mb/s (133.75MB/s) maximum media transfer rate. Currently the company ships 1TB hard disk drive that use the Serial ATA-300 interface, but a model with Parallel ATA interface is also expected to be available.
Hitachi"s 1TB hard disk drive indisputably represents a milestone in desktop storage, as the 1GB landmark in desktops was achieved back in 1995. As with many top-of-the-line purchases, end-users will have to pay a significant premium for 1TB on a single drive. Currently Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 hard disk drives are available in Japan for ¥51 500 - ¥55980 ($433 - $470), much higher compared to Seagate Barracuda 750GB, which retails for ¥29400 - ¥39660 ($247 - $333) in Tokyo. The recommended price of the 1TB drive from Hitachi for the U.S. is $399, whereas Seagate"s 750GB product costs starting from $249 in the country.