Hitachi Scores Enterprise Hard Drive Triple Play

by Ilya Gavrichenkov
04/23/2007 | 12:17 PM

Poised to secure a stronger foothold in the enterprise hard drive market segment, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi), today announced a trio of new products: the 15K RPM Ultrastar 15K300, 7200 RPM Ultrastar A7K1000, and the company's first small form factor (SFF) enterprise hard drive, the 10K RPM Ultrastar C10K147. Hitachi's new hard drives target a broad range of enterprise storage systems, from mission-critical and lower duty cycle storage applications to servers, delivering the quality and reliability customers have come to expect from Hitachi's Ultrastar enterprise-class hard drives.

A key new product in Hitachi's enterprise product portfolio is the Ultrastar C10K147, the company's first small form factor enterprise hard drive. The Ultrastar C10K147 was developed specifically for the high performance, low power requirements of servers. According to IDC, the industry is expected to experience a fast ramp in shipments from 2.4 million in 2006 to 9.4 million in 2007 as cost, space and low power considerations in data centers drive the need for a transition to SFF. The delivery of the Ultrastar C10K147 is timed to capitalize on and accelerate this increasing demand.

Hitachi's new Ultrastar hard drives are built upon technology proven for reliability, leveraging the system architecture and electronics of their predecessors. The 15K300 is the next generation of the popular 15K147, which has been qualified at major enterprise storage OEMs. The Ultrastar A7K1000 represents the next generation of the Deskstar E7K500, which has become the most popular hard drive for Enterprise SATA applications, with demonstrated reliability in the field. The Ultrastar A7K1000 is set to continue the reliability standard with a targeted 1.2 million hours mean time between failure 1 (MTBF).

Hitachi's enterprise "triple play" of hard drives is built on a deep understanding of the enterprise market. From product design through consistent manufacturing output, the company maintains a persistent focus on producing reliable products that meet the unique needs of three critical segments of the enterprise storage hierarchy:

• Ultrastar 15K300 – Built for mission-critical enterprise computing environments
  • 3.5-inch, 15,000 RPM, up to 300GB
  • 16 MB data buffer
  • Ultra320 SCSI, 3Gb/s SAS and 4Gb/s FCAL interfaces
  • Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS)
  • Thermal Fly-height Control (TFC)
  • Adaptive format
  • End-to-end data protection
• Ultrastar C10K147 – Optimized for the power, performance requirements of servers
  • SFF 2.5-inch 10,000 RPM, up to 147GB
  • 16 MB data buffer
  • 3Gb/s SAS interface
  • Thermal Fly-height Control
  • Adaptive format
  • End-to-end data protection
• Ultrastar A7K1000 – High capacity, low cost per gigabyte for lower duty cycle enterprise environments
  • 3.5-inch, 7,200 RPM, up to 1TB
  • 3.0Gb/s SATA interface
  • 32 MB data buffer
  • Targeted 1.2 million hours MTBF
  • Improved Rotational Vibration (RV) functionality
  • Self Protection Throttling (SPT) technology
  • Built on perpendicular magnetic recording technology

The Ultrastar 15K300 is available now with production quantities available in the first week of May 2007. The Ultrastar C10K147 and Ultrastar A7K1000 will be delivered in the second quarter of 2007.