Hitachi Rolls Out Energy-Efficient Hard-Drives

Hitachi has unveiled a replacement for their DeskStar series, which will be available in 250GB, 320GB and 500GB densities. The eco-friendly P7K500s will use at most 4.8W on the higher-end models thanks to a few different methods, such as having a lower-powered mode and also switching regulators that prove more efficient for voltage conversion.

The reason we are not seeing 750GB or larger drives is due to the fact that it’s more difficult to have “efficient” drives at those speeds/densities. In order for it to be an efficient drive, it would need to use at least 50% less power, which might be a challenge. Still, such is the way of technology, it shouldn’t take that long before we see drives like this surface.

Hitachi was mum about whether we’ll be seeing a terabyte model to match Western Digital’s Caviar GP anytime soon. As with any energy-efficient drive, the details are all in the benchmarks. We’ve found that the drives do indeed save a little bit of power — over the course of one year, you get about enough for a Taco Bell meal. However, energy-efficient drives also suffer from slower overall speeds than their similarly configured companions in the storage marketplace.

Source: Maximum PC