Three Generations Compared: Why Storage Density Matters

Deskstar 7K1000.B (Three Platters, 2008)

Original Review, from September 2008

Hitachi’s second-gen drive arrived at a time when many people expected the firm to go to 1.5TB, but it didn’t. Just as there was no 750GB model family, Hitachi preferred to wait until the 2TB mark was reachable. Still, the 7K1000.B brought significant improvement in performance and efficiency.

Performance went up from 85 MB/s with the original terabyte drive to 111 MB/s—a 30% boost. The reduced platter count (three rather than five) dropped power consumption from nearly 9W in idle to only 6.2W.