Hitachi Cuts Power Use for World's Most Energy-Efficient Desktop Hard Drive

Hitachi GST has implemented a set of power-saving technologies to reduce the P7K500’s active and idle power consumption by up to 40 percent over the previous generation.

As a result, the P7K500 achieves best-of-breed power consumption on its one-disk model and significant power savings on its two-disk model, both with 7200 RPM performance and Serial-ATA interface.

Hitachi GST’s new hard drive is designed for commercial and consumer PCs in capacities ranging from 250GB to 500GB.

The P7K500 is up to 59 percent more power efficient than comparable 250GB hard drives in its class, based on available specifications.

The power specifications offered on the Deskstar P7K500 support “green” initiatives that are aimed at producing power-friendly PCs and give significant advantage to PC manufacturers wishing to create ENERGYSTAR-compliant devices.

ENERGYSTAR PCs are allotted a budget of as low as 50 watts for idle power, of which the hard drive typically uses 7 watts, or 14 percent of the overall system requirement.

Through a 40-percent power reduction, Hitachi GST has delivered unmatched idle power utilization of 3.6 watts on the 250GB capacity model and 4.8 watts on models with capacities of 320GB or greater.

Similarly, the P7K500 has reduced its active power requirements to 6.4 watts and 8.2 watts for its one- and two-disk models, respectively.