Hitachi Global Storage Technologies announces several new 2 terabyte storage drives today including the new SimpleDrive USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive. Features of this new drive include:

• Vertical form factor with a “non-invasive footprint”
• Up to 2TB of storage space
• Plug-and-play support
• Anodized aluminum enclosure keeps the drive cool
• Available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities

The 500GB has an MSRP of $99.99. The 1TB an MSRP of $129.99 and the 2TB an MSRP of $249.99.

In addition to the SimpleDrive USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive, Hitachi also announced 2 terabyte solutions in the form of :

• SimpleTech Pro Drive with four interface options (USB 2.0 FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA). 500GB available for $119.99, 1TB for $169.99, and $2TB for $299.99
• SimpleTech Duo Pro Drive – two drives in one supporting RAID 0 or RAID 1. Includes eSATA and USB 2.0 interfaces. 1TB goes for $199.99 while the 2TB goes for $499.
• Hitachi Internal Hard Drive Kits – available in both 5400 and 7200 RPM speeds with up to 32MB cache buffer. The 2TB 7200RPM HDD has an MSRP of $249.99.

Technorati Tags: Hitachi, SimpleDrive USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive

Thanks to the acquisition of SimpleTech by Fabrik earlier this year, three new consumer oriented storage devices are now being introduced by Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST). The new products include the SimpleTOUGH portable USB drive, the SimpleDRIVE Mini portable USB drive, and the SimpleNET network storage adapter. Let’s quickly go over each of these three new products – all of which will be under the Hitachi brand name.

Hitachi SimpleTOUGH Portable USB 2.0 Drive:

• Industry’s only water-resistant and shock-resistant external hard drive from a global hard drive manufacturer
• Designed to sustain a 3 meter drop (9.8 feet) and withstand the pressure of a one-ton class commercial truck
• Foldaway USB cable
• Ergonomic sides for easy carrying
• Topside LED for power status
• Comes with Hitachi Travelstar hard drive

Prices for the new SimpleTOUGH are as follows:

• $99 dollars for 250GB
• $119.99 for 320GB
• $149.99 for 500GB

Hitachi SimpleDRIVE Mini Portable USB 2.0 drive:

• Stylish and contemporary USB 2.0 drive available in multiple colors
• Utilizes hard drives from Hitachi
• 2.5 inch portable external hard drive
• Cool underside LEDs for extra glow
• Joggle digital content manager for easy tracking, sharing, publishing of photos, music, and videos
• Hitachi Ultimate Backup online service (2GB free)
• Durable and made for travel
• USB powered

Colors and prices are as follows:

• Red wine in 250GB drive for $89.99
• Blue dusk in 320GB drive for $109.99
• Carbon fiber for a textured black look in 500GB drive for $139.99

Hitachi SimpleNET USB Drive Network Adapter:

• Allows you to share and access existing USB hard drive content over a home or small business network
• Plug USB drive into SimpleNET and then plug SimpleNET into an Ethernet network
• USB drive appears as a drive on the network
• Support for Mac, PC, and Linux users
• Connect up to two USB drives at once (2x USB 2.0 host ports – powered)
• Reset button
• FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, and EXT3 file system support
• Features include iTunes server, FTP access drive, DLNA media svr, SSH server for command line access
• MSRP of $79.99.

Technorati Tags: Hitachi, SimpelTOUGH portable USB drive, SimpleDRIVE Mini portable USB drive, SimpleNET network storage adapter

Hitachi Home Electronics announced yesterday their new LCD HDTV product lineup consisting of two new series – the Hitachi UltraVision Series and the Hitachi Alpha Series.  The Hitachi UltraVision Series comes in screen sizes ranging from 42 inches to 55 inches and has features such as 1080p resolution, 120Hz panel speed, and Hitachi’s Reel120 smooth movie motion technology. The Hitachi Alpha Series has two models at this time (a 32 incher and a 42 incher) and has features such as seven HD inputs with four of them being HDMI connections as well as RGB input for direct PC connectivity. Features aside – the biggest news about these new models? The price. The low end Alpha series has a 32 inch model under $500 dollars. The high end 55 inch model in the UltraVision series comes in at under $1800 dollars. Very nice!

Hitachi UltraVision Series

Common features and specs for the UltraVision lineup include:

• 1920 x 1080 resolution
• Five (4 on the 42 inch model) HDMI inputs
• x.v. Color and Deep Color support
• ENERGY STAR qualified
• Preprogrammed Remote
• SRS TruSurround HD
• Power Off Timer
• Intelligent Light Sensor
• Lockable Picture Settings
• 120Hz refresh rate
• 7 aspect modes and auto zoom
• ATSC/NSTC/QAM tuner
• 24 W Stereo Sound
• 2 Wideband component inputs
• 2 composite video inputs
• 2 S-Video inputs
• 1 PC input
• 1 PC audio input
• 1 RF antenna input
• 1 Optical output
• 1 USB input for software upgrades

The three UltraVision models are the

• UltraVision 55-inch Class L55S603 – available in September $1799
• UltraVision 46-inch Class L46S603 – available in August $1299
• UltraVision 42-inch Class L42S503 – available in June $999

Hitach Alpha Series

Moving to the Alpha lineup, here are the common features and specs:

• 1920 x 1080 resolution
• Four HDMI inputs
• ENERGY STAR qualified
• SRS TruSurround HD
• Anti-glare screen
• ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuner
• 4 aspect modes
• Custom input labels
• 24 W stereo sound
• 2 wideband component inputs
• 2 composite video inputs
• 2 S-video inputs
• 1 PC input
• 1 PC audio input
• 1 Optical output
• 1 headphone

The two Alpha models are the:

• Alpha Series 42-inch Class L42A403 – available in May $849
• Alpha Series 32-inch Class L32A403 – available in May $499

Technorati Tags: Hitach UltraVision Series, Hitach Alpha Series, HDTV, LCD HDTV Sets

To help drive sales for the Hitachi DZ-BD10HA Blu-ray camcorder, Hitachi has announced a new direct sales website at www.hitachibd.com. Launched today, the website will allow consumers to purchase the camcorder which sells for $1099. The website also features information to help educate consumers about Blu-ray as well as interactive guides that demo the features of the Hitachi DZ-BD10HA.

The Full 1080p capable DZ-BD10HA was launched back in September and features a 7 megapixel CMOS image sensor, optical image stabilization technologies, face detection technology, a built-in 30GB hard drive, and support for recording HD video to three separate formats (Blu-ray Disc, Hard Drive, and SDHC cards).

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Hitachi DZ-BD10HA Blu-ray camcorder

Hitachi is out with their second generation 500GB mobile hard drive – the Travelstar 5K500.B. The new 2.5 inch hard drive features advanced data encryption technology along with new green features such as a halogen-free design and reduced read/write power specifications.

The Travelstar 5K500.B features:

• Optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) for hard drive level security
• Meets the forthcoming Storage Security specification
• Meets Hitachi’s EcoTrac classification
• Read/Write power specification of 1.4 W
• 5400 RPM Speed
• SATA 3Gb/s interface
• 12 ms seek time
• Available in storage sizes ranging from 120GB to 500GB.

The Travelstar 5K500.B will be available starting in December.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B mobile hard drive

Hitachi Home Electronics has introduced a new next-generation Blu-ray Disc Hybrid Camcorder called the DZ-BD10HA which seemingly has all the different storage options covered. First off, the DZ-BD10HA has a built-in 30GB HDD which allows you to record up to 4 hours, 20 minutes of full HD video or 8 hours, 40 minutes of 1440 x 1080 video. If you run out of disk space, you can also record videos or still images directly to SD/SDHC flash memory cards via the built-in SDHC card slot. Nice huh? But wait.. there’s more. Hitachi offers yet a third solution – the ability to transfer full HD video recordings from the hard drive or SDHC card to the built-in BD drive – and all this without the need for a computer. The DZ-BD10HA includes editing functions such as splitting, splicing, deleting, merging, and transitions. There’s even a transcoding feature which coverts full HD videos to DVD quality videos. Very Nice.

Other features of the Hitachi DZ-BD10HA include:

• 7 megapixel CMOS image sensor
• Capture videos and image stills at Full HD (1920 x 1080)
• Face detection technology
• Hitachi developed compact, low power consuming, quiet, and reliable 8cm BD/DVD drive
• One-touch dubbing – transfer HD videos from SDHC or HDD to BD drive at one push of a button
• Optical Image Stabilization

The Hitach DZ-BD10HA will have an MSRP of $999 and is available in Japan now and will be hitting the US shores in Sept.

Technorati Tags: Hitachi, DZ-BD10HA Blu-ray Disc Hybrid Camcorder

Oh how cute.. it’s not everyday we get to hear of a new catch phrase. Hitachi’s got a new one for all of us – calling this time period the beginning of the “Tera Era”. They also took this opportunity to introduce two new green drives – the Deskstar 7K1000.B and the Deskstar E7K1000 for business critical applications.

So what’s up with the “Tera Era” statement? Well Hitachi sees “digital information” being “created, captured, and duplicated around the world” at an “unrelenting pace.” (yeah it’s called bittorrent! I kid…. sorta) Soo.. with multimedia content ever increasing, and computers ever more prevalent in our societies, one would figure that we all need just a bit more disk space. (yeah no duh..) Ah but no one else has come up with a good slogan for this time period so why not dub it the Tera Era. There ya go.

OK.. back to the matter at hand, we’ve got ourselves a couple of new drives from Hitachi. First up, there’s the Deskstar 7K1000.B which features:

• 7200 RPM rotational speed
• Three-disk design
• Improves idle power consumption up to 43 percent over 1TB predecessor
• Optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) provides protection against data loss and piracy
• Utilizes AES encryption
• SATA 3Gb/s interface
• Also available in 160GB, 250GB, 320GB, 500GB, 640GB, and 750GB capacities
• Idle power for 1TB drive is 5.2 W

For business critical applications, there’s the Deskstar E7K1000 which features:

• 32MB buffer
• five year warranty
• 1.2 million hour Mean Time Before Failure
• Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS) technology
• Same low power characteristics as 7K1000.B
• SATA 3Gb/s interface
• Also available in 500GB, and 750GB capacities

The new drives will be available this month.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Hitachi, Desktar 7K1000.B, E7K1000, Hard drives, Tera Era

Hitachi announced their fourth generation notebook hard drive today – the Travelstar 7K320. According to the company, the Travelstar 7K320 delivers 60 percent higher capacity (320GB) than its predecessor, and improves application performance by 12 percent and power consumption by 22 percent. Hitachi also offers an optional Bulk Data Encryption for increased data security and plans to ship an enhanced-availability model for low-duty-cycle 24/7 applications.

Features of the Hitachi Travelstar 7K320 include the following:

• Shock protection of 400Gs
• 7200 RPM speeds with 5400 RPM equivalent power consumption
• 320GB of space
• SATA 3Gb/s interface
• 4.2 ms average latency
• 12 ms average read time
• 1.0W active idle
• 0.8W low-power idle

The new Hitachi Travelstar 7K320 is now available to customers worldwide. The enhanced availability version will be available during the third quarter.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Hitachi, Travelstar 7K320, Notebook hard drive

Looking for a thin flat panel display? Well you’ll be happy to hear that the Hitach 1.5 inch UltraThin displays are now available in the US. The UltraThins will be available in four screen sizes (32 inch, 37 inch, 42 inch, and 47 inch) and will show up in two lineups from Hitachi – the Director’s Series (V) and the UltraVision (V) models. Here are the specs, prices and availability:

Director Series Models:

UltraVision Models:

[Check it out via News.com]

Technorati Tags: Hitachi, 1.5 inch UltraThin, Director Series, UltraVision, LCD TV

Enterprise hard drives just got a little bit larger and faster thanks to the introduction of the Hitachi Ultrastar 15K450. Using perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR), the 15K450 delivers 450GB of storage capacity while spinning at 15,000 RPM with a 2 ms average latency. Hitachi bills this drive as ideal for “mission-critical server and storage applications”. Heck, I think I could use some of these drives in my own work environment!

Key features of the Ultrastar 15K450 include:

• 30 percent faster in sequential throughput than previous models
• Average seek times as low as 3.3 ms
• Ships with either 3Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) or 4Gb/s Fibre Channel (FC) interfaces
• Contains fluid dynamic bearing motors
• Contains Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS) technology which detects disturbances that can occur in multi-drive configurations and attempts to counteract them

Specs include:

• 450GB capacity
• 4 platters, 8 recording heads
• 2090 Mb/s max media data rate
• 3.6 average seek time
• 15,000 RPM, 2 ms average latency
• 16MB data buffer
• 25.8 mm in height
• 750 in weight
• 250 G/2 ms pulse non-operating shock
• SAS: 13.3 watt idle power
• FCAL: 13.4 watt idle power
• 5 to 55 degrees C operating temperature

Come to think of it.. I’d love to have one of these bad boys for my home theater media serving.. hmm

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Hitachi, Ultrastar 15K450, Hard Drive