Got Video? You need one of these 400GB bad boys!

[Roundabout]

From CNET:

Hitachi to unveil 400GB drive

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies plans to announce this week a massive hard drive designed to store corporate data or record about 400 hours of video for consumers.

The new drive has a capacity of 400GB, spins at 7,200 revolutions per minute and uses ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) interface technology, according to a source close to Hitachi. The drive can come with either the parallel ATA interface long used in desktop computers or the newer Serial ATA interface. Dubbed the Deskstar 7K400, the drive is being tested by manufacturers and could be in digital video recorder (DVR) products available to consumers later this year, the source said.

Hitachi's product continues a push by hard-drive makers to play a larger role in the consumer electronics industry, which is using drives for devices, including DVRs and personal music players, like Apple Computer's iPods.

The company is billing the Deskstar 7K400 as the largest-capacity ATA drive with 3.5-inch platters. Currently, the largest 3.5-inch ATA drive is a 320GB product from Maxtor, according to John Monroe, an analyst at research firm Gartner. That drive, though, spins at 5,400rpm, which translates into slower performance than a 7,200rpm drive, Monroe said. He said 3.5-inch ATA drives running at 7,200rpm top out at 250GB.

Hitachi hopes that its whopper of a drive gets the attention of manufacturers in both the consumer and corporate markets.

In the latter, the drive is targeted at disk-based data storage gear called "nearline." That class of equipment has lower performance and is less reliable than systems with drives using the SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) or Fibre Channel interfaces, but it's faster for data recoveries than magnetic tape storage.

Hitachi recently announced a large-capacity 300GB drive designed for high-end storage devices, as well as a prototype of a small-size 2.5-inch drive for corporate customers.

The Deskstar 7K400 also aims to find a place in DVRs, which are devices that can record broadcasts as well as temporarily pause live programming. Hitachi already makes a 250GB drive that appears in DVRs. The roomier new drive is designed to store about 400 hours of standard broadcasts, or 45 hours of high-definition television, according to the source close to Hitachi.

DVRs are growing more powerful and popular. Monroe expects hard drives to play an increasing role in TV watching. "Every TV in the next five years will have a rotating magnetic device in it, on it or near it," he said.

Can't wait for the 1TB HDD's... :P

[indolikaa]

Bring it on, Hitachi!

[teegee420]

I think this is great news for us video enthusiasts although to be honest, there's no way in hell I would get a single drive that big. Like many of the people on this board, I've got a couple of dearly departed drives under my belt.

[offline]

I want 1,000 gig (is that a trilobyte or am I talking fossils here)

[rhegedus]

Would still prefer two 200Gb drives. Editing DV on one drive is such a drag - output speed is often slowed down by the HD read/write speed. With two drives, one does the reading and the other the writing - twice as fast (nearly).

[bugster]

I want 1,000 gig (is that a trilobyte or am I talking fossils here)

Its a TeraByte (or is that a Teradactyl )

[offline]

@ rhegedus

You have not heard of RAID then ?


@ bugster

Its a TeraByte (or is that a Teradactyl )

A T-Rex has a TeraByte (quite painful too..)
so what is after Tera... PicoByte?

[bugster]

@ rhegedus

You have not heard of RAID then ?


@ bugster

Its a TeraByte (or is that a Teradactyl )

A T-Rex has a TeraByte (quite painful too..)
so what is after Tera... PicoByte?

Peta... ( does that mean you can have a Pet T-Rex with a painful TeraByte or is this simply getting too silly for words )

[offline]

Peta... ( does that mean you can have a Pet T-Rex with a painful TeraByte

I guess you can. So what's next.. does T-Rex get a skin condition?
(A Pet T-Rex with a painful TeraByte and Exa)

or is this simply getting too silly for words

[rhegedus]

@ rhegedus

You have not heard of RAID then ?

Yes I have - but copying a 13Gb file to the same (source) drive will take longer than copying it to another.

[offline]

Yes I have - but copying a 13Gb file to the same (source) drive will take longer than copying it to another.

There is no one source in an array unless you are crazy
and set up a L1 - thats the whole point

[Capmaster]

I want 1,000 gig (is that a trilobyte or am I talking fossils here)

Its a TeraByte (or is that a Teradactyl )

Maybe a petabyte ....or is that what you do to your byte when you're happy with it?

[spiderman2k1]

I'm still waitting for them to release a one gig drive. LOL

[SLK001]

If they follow the standard internationally agreed upon prefixes, they will be:

10[E9] = giga
10[E12] = tera
10[E15] = peta (not to be confused with the animal wackos)
10[E18] = exa

[dcsos]

ATA stands for ATTACHMENT to an AT COMPUTER

what have they done
(ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY ATTAINMENT)??

its technoly offuscation in my opinion..Tho 400 gigs sounds good!

You won't be able to see more than 137 gigs of this baby if the mother board you own has 'ata66' ports or less
best to put it in an external FIREWIRE 2 case (800Mps) and see all 400 gigs (about 360 gigs after formatting)

http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,3048,a=107838,00.asp

[andyp1]

And I thought this was a Terabyte

[djmattyb]

Ok - this should clear up the what name goes with what size issues.

[MikieV]

I want 1,000 gig (is that a trilobyte or am I talking fossils here)

If you don't mind external (usb 2.0) you can get one of these:
http://www.lacie.com/news/news.htm?id=10066

When formatted, this enormous amount of storage can hold up to 1 year and 9 months* of continuous music, 1 month* of non-stop MPEG2 Video or 3 days* of uncompressed DV video.

But, I would really cry if I had one and it died. :P

What do you back that up to, another one of the same???

Mike

[redwudz]

Here you go, 1 terabyte for only $1200US and it's Firewire 800.http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10118
Edit: MikieV beat me to it.

[dcsos]

I have a terabyte over here..I'ts just not all on one machine!

[flaninacupboard]

if they're trying to sell to the PVR market i think they made a mistake with 7200RPM - it's hotter, noisier and more expensive than 5400RPM....
Plus if you're just recording an MPEG stream you don't need a massive transfer rate. i suppose it's different if they're on about HD PVR's, what knd of data rate does HD involve?

[MikieV]

Edit: MikieV beat me to it.

8)

Normally, it's other posters who beat me to it.

Totally off topic, but I wonder when/if USB 2.0 and Firewire 800 will be replaced by SATA for external drives?

Just need a box to make the drive look pretty, and protect the electronics - power and data through one slim cable. Like the current bus-powered Firewire drives - but with SATA speeds - and no firewire/usb chipset on the drive's end.

Once PCI-cards with SATA rear-outputs are available, the market for external USB/Firewire drives would disappear!

Of course, I don't expect any of the existing suppliers of external drives will be supporting the idea!!

Mike