Hitachi release 3TB hard drive

As hard drives develop and more and more manufacturers are rivalling one another it seems that Hitachi want in on the 3TB action.

Competing against Seagate and Western Digital who both released 3TB drives this year, it seems that Hitachi sat back and quietly released their offerings.

The 3TB monster will be available in two flavours, the first being a 5400RPM version dubbed the 5K3000 with a 32MB cache buffer and a 7200RPM model called the 7K3000 with 64MB cache.

By playing it cool, it seems that Hitachi have waited to see what their competitors would be releasing and then going one better by offering their drives with a SATA 6Gbps interface to the mass market in an eco-friendly design.

Hitachi will also be releasing slightly smaller capacities with a 1.5TB and 2TB version ready to hit the market soon, though speeds for all sizes are still sketchy but it does seem that the transfer rate could be anything up to 1.66Gbps.

Pricing wise, nothing is final but some sites seem to be taking pre-orders at around £165 for the top model, 7K3000. Also bear in mind that this isn’t an official announcement, but the above drives can be seen on Hitachi’s website with details information, specifications and data sheet. We can only assume that a press release is being readied as we speak.