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Toshiba and Hitachi Also Under Fire for Antitrust Issues

Paul Lilly — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:40:16 -0500

Sony isn't the only one in hot water with U.S. antitrust regulators. Both Toshiba and Hitachi have also fallen under the watchful eye of the U.S. Department of Justice and will have their optical device divisions investigated, The Inquirer reports.

Once again, not a whole lot of details are yet known, but just like with Sony, it's believed that the DoJ is sniffing out something afoul with each optical makers' Blu-ray line. More specifically, it's likely each company is being probed for potential price fixing allegations.

Before being knocked out of contention, HD-DVD players could be snagged for as low as $99, which coincided with a promotion to receive a small handful of free HD-DVD movies through the mail. For the most part, Blu-ray pricing has yet to come down to the same level. It should also be noted that Sony, Hitachi, and Toshiba account for about 60 percent of the optical drive market, according to some statistics.

Hitachi Unleashes Two Blazing Fast Enterprise Hard Drives

Bart Salisbury — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:35:32 -0500

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies announced today the availability of two new 15,000 RPM Ultrastar hard drives for Tier 0/1, mission-critical, enterprise storage applications.

The first is 147 GB Ultrastar C15K147, Hitachi’s first 15,000 RPM 2.5-inch 6 Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) hard drive. Hitachi claims the C15K147 has 11 percent higher sequential performance and 23 percent faster seek times when compared to its 10,000 RPM version. The C15K147 uses 50 percent less power than a similar 3.5-inch drive, due to Hitachi’s patented Advanced Power Management technology.

The second is a new 600 GB Ultrastar 15K600, a fourth generation 15,000 RPM 3.5-inch drive with either a 6 Gb/s SAS or 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) interface. Hitachi claims the 15K600, which also comes in 300 GB and 450 GB versions, to be the largest capacity 15,000 RPM 3.5-inch enterprise drive available.

Both drives come with the Trusted Computing Group’s (TCG) Enterprise A Security encryption to protect data.

The drives, each with a 5-year warranty, are now shipping. No pricing information was available.

Image Credit: Hitachi

Toshiba, Hitachi, and Western Digital Announce New Products

Ryan Whitwam — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:11:16 -0500

Three hard drive manufacturers have announced new products in a shockingly short time frame. Toshiba is releasing a new 1.8 inch drive for MP3 players, with capacities from 60 to 160GB. In the slightly larger 2.5 inch form factor, Toshiba is offering 640GB drive suitable for notebooks.

Western Digital is also offering a 640GB, 2.5 inch drive. This new Scorpio Blue model is thin enough to fit in any standard laptop drive bay. The 640 GB drive will retail for about $145 at launch. Western Digital’s 750GB and 1TB Scorpios are three platter drives, and are too thick to fit in most standard notebooks.

Hitachi’s new offerings are in the 3.5 inch space. The company’s new 1TB CinemaStar 7K1000.C should be shipping by year’s end. A second Hitachi 1TB drive, the 5K1000 CoolSpin, is designed to be quieter at the expense of speed. It only spins at 5400rpm instead of 7200rpm like the 7K1000.C. No pricing was announced.

NEC, Casio, and Hitachi to Combine Powers for Mobile Handset Manufacturing

Pulkit Chandna — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:00:54 -0500

Japanese electronics manufacturers Casio, NEC and Hitachi have decided to merge their mobile phone divisions. The merged entity will be ready to lock horns with local and international competitors by April next year. Casio and Hitachi are already part of a joint venture they constituted in 2004. With NEC joining the existing joint venture, the resulting entity will, immediately after its birth, acquire the bragging rights that belong to the second-largest handset maker in Japan.

The latest entrant will be the largest stakeholder in the new business with a 66 percent stake, while Casio and Hitachi will hold 17.34 percent and 16.66 percent, respectively. The three are not only eyeing the jam-packed Japanese market, but also the global market. Japanese handset makers have not been able to have an impact on the world stage. Though they seem to posses the goods to shatter their global jinx to smithereens, the world has never really warmed up to the relatively more advanced Japanese cellphone technology.

The Japanese have pioneered many advancements in mobile technology, from e-mail to electronic payments. All said, their lack of success is not entirely incomprehensible. The fact is that Japanese handset makers have never tried to tailor their products to international tastes.

Image Credit: Geek

Hitachi Launches 500GB, 7200 RPM Travelstar 7k500 2.5" HDD

Paul Lilly — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:36:25 -0500

Mobile road warriors looking to squeeze the most performance possible out of their notebooks can plop a pair of high octane SSDs into the chassis and empty their Paypal account in the process, or choose from a growing number of high performance, 7200 RPM hard drives in 2.5-inch form. Enter Hitachi, who today started shipping its fifth-generation 7200 RPM mobile hard disk: Hitachi Travelstar 7k500.

"Portable PC shipment growth continues to be one of the most significant market drivers underpinning 2.5-inch disk drive demand, and is a major reason why IDC expects the 2.5-inch mobile HDD market will grow at a 16.8 percent 2008-2013 compound annual growth rate," said John Rydning, research director for hard disk drives at IDC.

Over its predecessor, Hitachi claims the 7k500 supercharges performance up to 16 percent while offering up to 56 percent more capacity. On the energy efficiency front, the 7k500 draws just 0.69W at idle and 1.8W during read and write operations, Hitachi says.

The new series in available in 120GB, 160GB, 250GB, and 500GB capacities and is shipping to top tier OEMs now.

Hitachi via Engadget

TDK Looks to Deliver 2.5TB Drives By Early 2010

Justin Kerr — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:42:09 -0500

It’s been a long time since TDK had bragging rights in the storage wars, but a new breakthrough promises to put them back on top. According to the companies recently released roadmap, a 3.5 inch 2.5TB drive design is currently being tested which will feature a new 640GB platter. This would allow TDK to leapfrog Seagate, Hitachi and even Western Digital who are still working with 500GB platters.

Mass production is currently planned for November of this year and will most likely result in drives hitting the street on or around late January or early February 2010. TDK is also investing heavily in the production and testing of a new 320GB platter for 2.5 inch drives which will result in low power, high performance 640GB notebook drives around the same period next year.

Sure this is a far cry from the 5TB Hitachi was promising for 2010, but TDK can still be king for a day right?

Hitachi Unveils World's First 2TB 7200RPM Hard Drive

Paul Lilly — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:45:02 -0500

Hitachi can't lay claim as the first manufacturer to develop a 2TB hard drive -- that distinction belongs to Western Digital -- but it is the first one to do so with a 7200RPM spindle speed, besting the spindle speeds found on 2TB drives from both WD and Seagate.

"The new Deskstar 7K2000 reflects our ongoing commitment to provide customer, channel partners, and OEMs with proven, reliable solutions for enabling desktop computers, gaming systems, workstations, and desktop RAID arrays," said Brendan Collins, vice president of marketing, Hitachi GST.

Hitachi's fourth generation Deskstar crams 2TB onto a five-platter design "with relaxed bit density" and perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology. As would be expected in a modern, high performance drive, the 7K2000 boasts 32MB of cache and a 3Gb/s SATA interface.

No word yet on price or availability.

Image Credit: Hitachi

Hitachi's HFCL Tech Will Make LCDs Cheaper

Pulkit Chandna — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:44:40 -0500

LCD prices are on the wane, but Hitachi may have found a way to effect a steeper fall in LCD prices. A tech website is said to have learnt that Hitachi’s new HFCL technology could pave the way for more energy-efficient and cost-effective LCDs.

Though the new LCDs will utilize two to three times less lamps than their CCFL counterparts, they will offer superior brightness. Their superior watt output and use of fewer lamps make for a terrific energy-saving cocktail.