While Hitachi certainly isn't the first company to introduce a 2TB hard drive, it may well be the first with a consumer drive that couples that capacity with a 7,200-RPM spindle speed. The new 2TB Deskstar 7K2000, which has both of those attributes, has now started shipping.
Hitachi says it makes the Deskstar 7K2000 using a five-platter design with a 32MB cache. That's one more platter than WD's 2TB Caviar Green, which also has a lower spindle speed. Unsurprisingly, then, the Deskstar 7K2000 seems to be quite a bit louder—at least, Hitachi quotes a "typical" noise level of 29 dB.
Hitachi has also announced a "refreshed" version of its "high-volume desktop hard drive family:" the Deskstar 7K1000.C series. These new drives come with capacities ranging from 160GB to 1TB, with up to 500GB per platter. Cache sizes vary from 8 to 32MB depending on the model, while noise level are a fainter 24-25 dB. The 7K1000.C family will hit production "in the current quarter," says Hitachi.
As far as we're aware, WD was the first hard drive maker to announce a 2TB consumer drive (the 2TB Caviar Green) in January. Seagate followed in February with the 2TB, 7,200-RPM Constellation ES, an enterprise product, and it came out with the low-power, consumer-oriented 2TB Barracuda LP in April.
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