INTRODUCTION

I'm not sure how old some of you are but I can remember the first New IBM XT computer I bought which cost about the same as what a new computer from Alienware does today, the XT had such wonderful features as 256 KB of memory which was huge for the time, along with a pair of 360K/5.25" floppy drives and the really workhorse of the system the whooping 5 MB Winchester hard drive. I can remember seeing a headline similar to this and getting so excited. The year was 1982... "Lucky attendees at the West Coast Computer Faire had the opportunity to see, Davong Systems introduces its 5MB Winchester Disk Drive for the IBM PC which is priced at approximately US$2000. "

In today's market place when you think of hard drives the average user can more than likely get by with a hard drive that is 250 GB in range, yes it will eventually fill up and might need to be cleaned up a little or a second drive added but generally that size should suit the casual user just fine.

Now lets talk about the hard core disk user, the ones that records a pile of CDs to their hard drive and then tops it off with six or 7 complete vacation CDs for good measure. Or perhaps you have a friend like I do that has a video card in his computer and he is constantly downloading things from the satellite TV channel to the hard drive to show us when we come over. Last I know he was running four 300 GB drives and was complainting about running out of space.

So as you can see whether your a casual user or your middle name happens to be Nero a hard drive will be the work horse of your computer it will also be the main topic of this review as we look at the massive new drive from Hitachi Global Storage - their model 7K500. 500 GB that's right half a terabyte of recording area, so lets get busy and see what we can find out about this new drive and why SATA 2 is making so much noise.

SPECIFICATIONS

 CAPACITY

• 500GB
  
  
• Highest capacity available in the industry
  
  
• 56 hours of HDTV broadcast, or
  
  
• 125,000 high quality, 4 minute MP3 recordings
  
  
  

  PERFORMANCE

  High interface transfer rates SATA II - 3.0 Gb/s interface Rotational Vibration Safeguard

  Faster system boot-up 300MB/s burst data rate for faster data access Optimum performance in multi-drive systems

  RELIABILITY
  
  

  ECC and CRC protection Optional low-power mode Load/unload ramp Internal thermal sensor Data integrity enhanced throughout circuits

  Reduces system hear/cooling requirements Enables industry-leading acoustics Protects user data when power is removed Improves data integrity