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Hitachi were the first to announced and produce their 1 Terabyte HDD, with Samsung and Seagate offerings soon to follow. Dates for those to hit the market are late August and end of September, respectively, leaving the Deskstar 7K1000 a few months to steal the limelight. Although all still seems quiet on the western front with Western Digital being rather silent about its drives.

The Hitachi desktop offering is its second-generation of Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) hard drives - this goes some way to explain the decision on the platters, density and heads of the drive. It could also highlight why it was the first to market. Although it was first to gather arms in the terabyte wars it might not become the champions when the dust settles.

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 weighs in at four platters with ten heads, whereas Seagate’s offering is its second generation too of PMR drives and hits the four platters and eight heads mark. What’s surprising, to even the competition is Samsung's monster drive. This comes in at three platters and six heads, on its third gen too – perhaps being the one to watch here. As with more working parts, more chance of failure, wear and tear and greater heat output too. Then again, there’s always the argument to be made about more platters, less density per disc, less chance of errors and then higher performance. People all know this and are aware they’re deciding factors. They can make their own well informed minds up, without being led astray by marketing waffle. Early prices on all of these seem to be much of muchness, so perhaps the tech will decide.

Most manufactures have other 1TB offerings in their range too; PVR aimed quieter drives and enterprise orientated – with SAS being a favourable connector here. Samsung has also announced one in the enterprise, it will be interesting to see how it fares.

Suggested Price is $399 which is comparable to the average cost of two 500GB drives right now UNLESS you take a look at the Maxtor 500GB Ultra DMA/100 16MB Buffer - L01Y500 Hard Drive being offered on Frye's website www.outpost.com . They have these drives on sale right now for $89.99 with free shipping.  They limit 5 per household which comes out to 2500GB for $450.  This sale is limited from 7-20 to 7-25.  Check it out here:
http://shop3.outpost.com/product/509066 ... IN_RSLT_PG

you can also read the whole technical review here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41145

tig

LaCie today unveiled the triple-interface Big Disk Extreme+ with a LaCie Shortcut Button and included EMC Retrospect backup and recovery software for Windows/Mac OS. This versatile storage solution is equipped with FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 interfaces, as well as a utility that allows users to back up files or launch any application by pushing the front blue button. The LaCie Big Disk Extreme+ is available today in 1TB, 1.5TB, and 2TB capacities. Their 1TB model comes in around $350.

TrekStor on Monday introduced a 1Tbyte, 3.5-inch external USB hard drive for backing up data in Windows, Mac or Linux computers.

DataStation, the highest capacity hard drive from the German company, includes backup software for copying individual files, folders or entire drives. The new hardware comprises two 500Gbyte hard drives that are recognized as a single drive.

The software, called Nero BackItUp2, compresses files during the backup process to reduce data volume. The information can be password protected.

Other DataStation features include an on/off switch on the front panel, and an aluminum housing that dissipates heat without the need of a fan. The hard drive ships with a USB 2.0 cable, external power supply, and the backup software. The device costs $430.

Western Digital has stepped up its efforts in the enterprise market with the release of the WD RE2 (RAID Edition) 750GB hard drive. The new drive features a 3.0Gb/s SATA interface and 16MB of cache onboard.

The drive also boasts a MTBF of 1.2 million hours which is sufficient for its use in email, file and web servers. The new drive also features SecurePark technology for shock prevention, StableTrac for resistance to vibrations and IntelliSeek which reduces power usage by up to 60 percent compared to standard HDDs.

"WD has continued to leverage its extensive experience from previous RAID Edition drives, to develop a hard drive perfectly suited for a variety of high-capacity enterprise applications," said Western Digital VP and GM of enterprise storage Tom McDorman. "These drives demand high capacity, reliability, performance and advanced features," said Tom McDorman, WD's vice president and general manager of enterprise storage."

Western Digital's WD RE2 750GB (WD7500AYYS) HDD will ship later this month at a suggested retail price of $265 USD. The drive will be backed by Western Digital’s 5-year warranty.

Philips have release the SPD5130 one Terabyte external hard-drive.


With a massive one Terabyte (1000GB) of memory you should have ample room for all your photo’s, movie’s and music.
The drive has a 32MB buffer for fast, reliable transfers and utilises a eSATA interface to boost the transfer rate by anything up to six times that of USB 2.
It is based on a single disc unit, meaning it is more compact than regular double disc versions.
It comes wrapped in thick aluminum to help alleviate noise and skipping from bumps.
Shipping begins in May.

Will Cost Around £305

Seagate has announced two hard drives for consumer and enterprise markets, the Barracuda 7200.11 and Barracuda ES.2 hard drives.  The new hard drives use Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR), spin at 7,200 RPM, 32 MB of cache, and Seagate’s renowned  five-year limited warranty.  The new drives are designed to lower operating temperatures as well as power consumption to increase overall drive longevity and lower decibel ratings from the drives.  Along with quite a few newer technologies, Seagate has announced the new drives to have a higher sustained transfer rate of 105MB/s, the highest to date.

Expect to see the new drives in the third quarter at a price of approximately $400.

Good info Tigrr27!  Thanks.  I might add most computer guru's in my area along with a Dell rep tend to refer to the Deskstar as the "Deathstar." For whatever that's worth.

Also had a good friend who passed away several years back who was in charge of media for NASA.  He said it wasn't something NASA advertised but seem to favor the quality of the Seagates.  Since then I have bought them when needed.  Liked the idea of "what hard drive would you bet your life on" sorta motto. .

Kelly

I used to work for many of the hard drive companies and I certainly support Seagate as the choice for quality, at least for now. Due to consolidation of the disk drive companies, Maxtor, who used to have worst record when it came to quality (and I used to work for them in the past) is now owned by Seagate. That doesn't automatically mean that the quality of Maxtor will increase to match Seagate's. Many companies in the past purchased a company and their overall quality fell. So, I am holding my breath on what the overall outcome will be.

As for the PMR, the idea has been around for at least 15 years, it took a while to perfect the technology. The basic idea is that the original way was to record the magnetic pole change or transitions(+ to - if you will) which is how you represented the 0s and 1s, horizontally across the platter. PMR does this in a vertically, i.e. from surface to below surface, rather than laid out horizontally. This gives higher density of bits because you can put more magnetic transition on a platter, so more data can be recorded.

I am waiting for the price of those 1GB drives to drop and going to replace my NAS with 4 of them babies. Then I would have 4TB (3 usable TBs) storage in less than a cubic feet of space. What a concept that would be. Hmm, I wonder how many DVDs I can rip to my NAS so I can watch them via my Media Player.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

I wish 2TB was enough. My Music Video Collection is 4TB. I guess it wouldn't be so Bad if I didn't use vob files.

I'm at around 850 gig now for my karaoke and music. It's nice to have it on all one drive.