Original URL: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/01/hitachi_hybrid/
Hitachi's hard drive division today outlined its strategy for the next year, pushing encryption and flash memory hybrids at notebooks. It'll be increasing capacity on its cash cow 2.5-inch notebook drives too. A 2.5in 7,200rpm effort will lead the charge in the first half of next year with 200GB of storage. Later in the year a 5,400rpm drive will push notebook capacity up to quarter of a terabyte.
Over on desktop, Hitachi will rock up with a 1TB drive in 2007.
The encrytion and flash hybrid drives signal the hard drive market's move towards adding value to the hard drive component from the user's perspective.
Main rival Seagate has its own (http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/seagate_channel_strategy/) offerings in these areas too, though the industry is of course keen to rubbish talk of the beginning of the end for magnetic drives. Hitachi reckons hybrid drives will find most traction in the mobile market.
Encryption might be a tougher sell, especially once Vista ships with its own software-based full disk encryption thrown in.
More from Hitachi here (http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/template.MAXIMIZE/menuitem.368c8bfe833dee8056fb11f0aac4f0a0/?javax.portlet.tpst=74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_ws_MX&javax.portlet.prp_74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_viewID=content&javax.portlet.prp_74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_docName=20061101_quarter_terabyte_product.html&javax.portlet.prp_74ef8e8d695bcd876ccf7be1cf4362b4_folderPath=%2Fhgst%2Faboutus%2Fpress%2Finternal_news%2F&beanID=804390503&viewID=content&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=token&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=token). ®
Hitachi admits hybrid drives aren't all that, bag of chips (21 September 2007)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/09/21/hitachi_admits_hybrid_drives_do_not_deliver/
Samsung fields Flash cache fitted hybrid hard drive (7 March 2007)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/03/07/samsung_ships_hybrid_hdd/
Storage revs up in third quarter (6 December 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/06/q3_storage_market/
Hitachi rolls out 3.5in HDDs (25 October 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/10/25/hitachi_deskstar_cinemastars/
Hitachi pays out in patent dispute with employee (19 October 2006)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/10/19/hitachi_loses_employee_patent_suit/
Hitachi recalls Sony laptop batteries (6 October 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/10/06/hitachi_battery_recall/
Hitachi spins up DVR-friendly perpendicular HDD (1 September 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/09/01/hgst_preps_perp_dvr_hdd/
Hitachi-LG preps world's first 4x Blu-ray burner (25 July 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/07/25/hitachi-lg_preps_4x_bd-r_drive/
Hard drive shipments soar in Q1 (20 July 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/20/hdd_shipments_up_q1/