Hitachi Launches Power-Efficient HDD

One of the biggest problems that's cropped up with the tremendous performance boost in computing has been an increase in power expenditure. Though AMD has taken some steps with its low-power range of processors, this area has remained largely neglected.

One of the biggest culprits in this regard has got to be HDD manufacturers, whose sole focus till now has been on increasing the speed and performance of their products while neglecting the issue of vastly higher power requirements.

However, things appear to be changing. In a positive move, Hitachi has introduced what it says is its most power-efficient HDD. This new drive aims to cut power requirements by up to 40% over previous offerings. The model in question is the Desktar PK7500.

The PK 7500 requires only 3.6 watts of power in idle mode for its 250 GB model. The higher end model (350 GB) requires only 4.8 Watts. Under full load, the 250 GB will require 6.4 Watts and the 350 GB will require 8.2 Watts of power.

For more details on how this has been achieved, check out this excellent report by Dailytech.

The new drives will ship by end of the year. Prices have not been announced yet.