Hitachi GST announced that is has succeeded in squeezing 1TB onto a single 3.5-inch hard disk drive platter.

For more information visit: www.hitachigst.com

Unedited press release follows:

Hitachi GST Ships One Terabyte Per Platter Hard Drives

New Family of Deskstar and CinemaStar Hard Drives Reach Areal Density Milestone;

Optimized One-Disk Design Offered in 250GB to 1TB Targeting 3.5-inch HDD Industry Capacity Sweetspots

SAN JOSE, Calif.–As the first to ship a multi-disk 1TB hard disk drive (HDD) in 2007, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced that is has achieved yet another 1TB milestone by squeezing it on a single disk. Leveraging the company’s strong R&D heritage and time-to-market leadership, the new one terabyte per platter (1TB/platter), one-disk, Hitachi Deskstar™ 7K1000.D drive family is now shipping worldwide. Featured in both Deskstar and CinemaStar™ brands, Hitachi is providing a full range of capacities, 250GB – 1TB, on both low RPM CoolSpin™ and 7,200 RPM platforms.

With the addition of the new Deskstar and CinemaStar drives, which are first in a family of 1TB/platter drives, Hitachi continues to offer one of the broadest most reliable product lines for desktop and mobile solutions. For the ultra thin and light notebook market, Hitachi delivers the 7mm z-height Travelstar™ Z5K500 drives (636 gigabits per square inch “Gb/in²”). And now, ideal for high-performing desktop computers and the consumer electronics (CE) market, Hitachi presents the new 1TB/platter Deskstar and CinemaStar family drives (569 Gb/in²).

“The areal density race continues and while having the highest capacity is appealing, reaching 1TB per platter is equally important as it serves a full range of applications and opportunities across the industry’s largest market volume,” said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing at Hitachi GST. “As we ship our first 1TB per platter drives, we know we’re delivering capacity, reliability and value to a broad customer base. Not only are we shipping our 1TB per platter drives to our own Branded Business, but we are shipping to our channel partners as well, enabling them to design affordable HDD-based solutions at attractive price points.”

Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D and Deskstar 5K1000.B with Coolspin Technology
The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D hard drive family provides the ideal combination of performance, capacity, reliability and value required for today’s power-friendly consumer and commercial desktop computers, as well as external storage solutions, PC gaming systems, and desktop RAID arrays. Built using Hitachi’s proven 7,200 RPM platform, the drive delivers amazing speed with a 6Gb/second Serial ATA interface and a 32MB cache buffer. With eighth-generation power management technology and power-saving HiVERT™ innovations, this new drive provides up to 15 percent idle power savings over the previous model. Hitachi is also offering the new Deskstar 5K1000.B drive family with low power and cool operation. With CoolSpin technology, along with other Hitachi power management techniques, the Deskstar 5K1000.B delivers a 23 percent idle power savings over the Deskstar 7K1000.D, enabling a new generation of cool and quiet personal computing devices. The low power profile of both the Deskstar 7K1000.D and the Deskstar 5K1000.B drives helps reduce overall system power requirements for developing energy-efficient systems.

Hitachi CinemaStar 7K1000.D and 5K1000.B
HD, IPTV and Internet TV growth are driving the demand for cost-effective storage-based TVs and DVRs for consumers to record, playback, surf and stream their favorite movies and shows from their TVs. In the CE space today, approximately 90 percent of HDD demand is for single-disk capacities ranging from 250GB to 500GB, which can be served by Hitachi’s new 1TB/platter CinemaStar family. The new Hitachi CinemaStar 7K1000.D and 5K1000.B product lines give customers a dedicated 3.5-inch family that delivers a balance of performance, power, acoustics and capacities that is optimized for this market. With more than 10 features and technologies optimized for A/V streaming, the new CinemaStar 7K1000.D and 5K1000.B offer a variety of capacity and RPM choices for DVRs, set-top boxes and video surveillance systems. All 1TB/platter 7,200 RPM and Coolspin versions ship with a 32MB cache buffer and a 6Gb/second Serial ATA interface.

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D and 5K1000.B CoolSpin versions are shipping today to distributors and channel partners. CinemaStar drives are expected to ship in the Fall. Please visit www.hitachigst.com for more information.

About Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) develops advanced hard disk drives, enterprise-class solid state drives, innovative external storage solutions and services used to store, preserve and manage the world’s most valued data. Founded by the pioneers of hard drives, Hitachi GST provides high-value storage for a broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Personal Storage. Hitachi GST was established in 2003 and maintains its U.S. headquarters in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit the company’s website at http://www.hitachigst.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.
Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE:HIT) (TOKYO:6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 360,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2010 (ended March 31, 2011) consolidated revenues totaled 9,315 billion yen ($112.2 billion). Hitachi will focus more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes information and telecommunication systems, power systems, environmental, industrial and transportation systems, and social and urban systems, as well as the sophisticated materials and key devices that support them. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company’s website at http://www.hitachi.com.

Hitachi GST remains an independent company until the acquisition by Western Digital closes, anticipated to take place in Q4 2011. Our product portfolio has been a driver of our success. Until the close, we continue to execute plans for our communicated product roadmap and both companies intend to ship all product lines in parallel until their logical end of life. Customers can rest assured that when the acquisition is complete all Hitachi GST terms and conditions of the product warranty in effect at the time of purchase will be honored.

One GB is equal to one billion bytes, and one TB equals 1,000 GB (one trillion bytes). Actual capacity will vary depending on operating environment and formatting.