Hitachi had already crossed the terabyte barrier with its Deskstar 7K1000 hard drive back in January 2007. Now, it has gone one step further by coming out with, not a larger version of the hard disk, but a more efficient one, even as rival Seagate proposes to go one step further, in fact, quite a few steps, by raising the benchmark for maximum capacity by a whopping 50 per cent. (See: Seagate launches world's first 1.5 terabyte hard disk drive).

This product, called the Deskstar 7K 1000.B, has been dubbed by Hitachi as the world's most energy-efficient 7,200RPM HDD (hard disk drive) and the perfect solution to the ever-increasing storage demands of modern computing in what it is calling the ''Tera Era''.

Like its predecessor, the 7K1000.B is a 3.5-inch, 7,200rpm hard drive that serves up 1TB of storage space and a 32MB buffer. It hits that magic terabyte mark, however, by using only three disks - down from the five-disk design of the older 1TB drive. It also borrows from Hitachi's 2.5-inch mobile drives and includes Bulk Data Encryption.

''Hitachi pioneered the industry's first terabyte hard drive, so we are pleased to see how the market for high capacity desktop and laptop drives has grown substantially in the past year,'' trumpeted Larry Swezey, director of Consumer and Commercial HDD Marketing and Strategy at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

''Now through the application of Hitachi's advanced head, media and channel technologies, we can bring to market a terabyte drive using only three disks that has advanced performance and best-in-class power consumption,'' he added.

By applying Hitachi's seventh-generation power management technology and innovations pioneered on the popular 2.5-inch Travelstar line of mobile hard drives, the Deskstar 7K1000.B delivers best-in-class power management and thermal emissions to help manufacturers meet or exceed energy compliance targets.

Beyond its obvious storage muscle, the new Deskstar drive also offers increased data loss and piracy protection thanks to the incorporation of Bulk Data Encryption (BDE), which is available as an optional peace-of-mind extra at purchase.

With BDE, data is scrambled using a key, as it is being written to the disk and then descrambled with the key as it is retrieved. Thus, data encryption at the hard-drive level represents a more sophisticated approach of securing users' data and is generally considered to be virtually impenetrable.

Adding further reinforcement to the Deskstar's protection credentials, the new drive also uses an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), which has been certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to deliver the strongest commercially available data security protection. Only hard drives with this certification are eligible to be used by the US government for national security applications.

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B will sell for $239 when it starts shipping later this month. Hitachi will also ship the Deskstar E7K1000 this month for $279, an enterprise version of the drive designed for low-duty-cycle, 24x7 applications.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) develops advanced hard disk drives to store and preserve the world's valued data. With approximately 32,000 employees worldwide, Hitachi GST offers a comprehensive range of hard drive products for desktop computers, high-performance storage systems and servers, notebooks and consumer devices.

Hitachi Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 384,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2006 (ended 31 March 2007) consolidated revenues totaled 10,247 billion yen ($86.8 billion).

Seagate launches world's first 1.5 terabyte hard disk drive

Hitachi may be launching a more efficient version of its one-terabyte hard disk drive, but rival Seagate proposes to go one step further, in fact, quite a few steps, by raising the benchmark for maximum capacity by a whopping 50 per cent. For those who find 1 terabytes of storage space a trifle less than their requirements, they can put their money on Seagate's 1.5TB Barracuda 7200.11.

The new HDD (hard disk drive), according to Seagate, uses just four platters for its 1.5TB of storage and makes use of perpendicular magnetic recording technology for capacity boosting. This 3.5-inch internal hard drive also sports a Serial ATA 3GB/sec interface for a reported sustained data rate of up to 120MB/second.

In addition to this desktop drive, the company also two 500 GB HDDs meant for notebooks. Called the Momentus, they will be offered in 5,400 and 7,200 RPM flavors called the Momentus 5400.6 and Momentus 7200.4 respectively. The 5,400RPM drive will have an 8MB cache while the 7,200 RPM version will have 16MB.

Both Momentus drives are built tough enough to withstand up to 1,000 Gs of non-operating shock and 350 Gs of operating shock to protect drive data, making the drives ideal for systems that are subject to rough handling or high levels of vibration.

For added robustness in mobile environments, the Momentus 5400.6 and 7200.4 are offered with G-Force Protection, a free-fall sensor technology that helps prevent drive damage and data loss upon impact if a laptop PC is dropped. The sensor works by detecting any changes in acceleration equal to the force of gravity and parks the heads off the disc to prevent contact with the platter in a free fall of as little as 8 inches and within 3/10ths of a second.

While the Barracuda will be available from next month onwards, the Momentus drives will show up in stores towards the end of this year. All of them come with Seagate's characteristic five-year warranty.

Highlighting the global growth of digital content, Seagate expects to ship its two billionth hard drive within the next five years. Earlier this year Seagate shipped its one billionth hard drive since the company's inception nearly 30 years ago.

''Organizations and consumers of all kinds worldwide continue to create, share and consume digital content at levels never before seen, giving rise to new markets, new applications and demand for desktop and notebook computers with unprecedented storage capacity, performance and reliability,'' said Michael Wingert, Seagate executive vice president and general manager, Personal Compute Business.

''Seagate is committed to powering the next generation of computing today with the planet's fastest, highest-capacity and most reliable storage solutions,'' he added.