Hitachi launches first 300GB hard drive

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) has released what it claims is the world's first 300GB enterprise hard disk drive - the first new-generation drive to emerge since it acquired IBM's disk division early last year.

The 1in high, 10,000rpm UltraStar 10K300 drive achieves the extra capacity by increasing the tracks per inch on the disk.

Initial samples of the drive, which supports Ultra320 SCSI and 2Gbps Fibre Channel, are currently being evaluated by major original equipment manufacturers. It is scheduled to ship in volume in the second quarter.

Hitachi is also promising disks using new perpendicular recording technology to achieve another dramatic increase in bit density, as current parallel recording reaches its limits.

Perpendicular records each data bit vertically into the platter instead of horizontally across the surface (parallel).

Ian Vogelesang, Hitachi GST vice president of marketing, told vnunet.com: "Parallel recording becomes thermally unstable at 100-200Gbps per square metre.

"We estimate perpendicular will provide four times the capacity before it hits the same technology challenges."

Both IBM and Hitachi have worked on perpendicular recording for some years. The first product release should appear next year.

But Robert Peyton, director of European storage research at analyst IDC, cautioned that there was a reluctance by enterprises to go to higher capacities.

"Overall average capacity of an enterprise drive is about 60GB. One of the issues is [increased] rebuilding time if there is a failure on higher capacity. The market is more concerned with higher performance and reliability," he said.

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