1TB Hard Disk Drives Review

What are 1 (one) Terabyte Hard drives

Computers are meant for processing vast amounts of data in a relatively short time with a freer access to all the data. This means that the computer must have access to databases stored in physical storage devices that can store electronic data in a vast amount. Starting with magnetic storage devices to the sleek Blu-Ray devices that store an unprecedented amount of data in the same form factor as that of a Compact Disc (CD). It was only a matter of time before hard drives got an upgrade to their storage capacity, and 1 (one) Terabyte Hard drives were invented that could store up to 1000 GB (or one Terabyte) of memory. The technology used in these hard drives is the latest and one of the most advanced since the advent of rotating hard drives.

The first proponents of the 1 TB hard drives were the folks at Hitachi. They made a promise in mid 2005 that they would make 1 Terabyte hard discs by end 2007. They were quoted as saying that they will use perpendicular recording, a technique to write data vertically in the rotating disc instead of the norm of writing data horizontally and create a new material for recording the data. These innovations and other data storage techniques led to the formation of the first 1 (one) Terabyte hard drives. The 3.5 inch drive that Hitachi produced was a marvel that was designed that not only broke the barriers of storage capacity but also introduced new concepts that were fully integrated into the common knowledge of computer manufacture.

With 5 platters reading 250 GB each, and the data being recorded vertically, Hitachi’s Deskstar 7K100 is a state of the art 3.5 inch rotating disk drive at 7200 rpm. Though the speed is not very fast (hence accessing time is longer), perpendicular recording takes care of the data access speeds, making sure the time of access is not too high. Thus the SATA (Serial ATA) disc is capable of interface speeds of up to 3 GB/s – quite high for a normal 3.5 inch drive. The seek times are a nominal 8.5ms for writing and 9.2ms for reading.

At $400 for the 1TB hard drive, this monster is all about speed and functionality. The Hitachi Deskstar 7K100, though pretty expensive at this juncture delivers for its price and stays atop competition for 1 TB hard drives and other storage formats using new technology.