Hitachi launches new desktop hard drive

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies on Wednesday launched a new family of hard drives for desktop PCs and storage systems. The new Deskstar 7K250 drives will offer capacities ranging from 40GB to 250GB with a standard Parallel ATA interface or 80GB to 250GB with a the newer Serial ATA interface.

The drives are the first desktop products to come out of Hitachi Global Storage, which was formed in 2002 after Hitachi bought IBM's hard drive business. The new Deskstars offer rotational speeds of 7,200 revolutions per minute and an option for an 8MB data buffer to speed delivery of data, IBM said. Aside from appearing in desktop PCs and storage systems, the drives will be available at retail. A 250GB Deskstar 7K250 is expected cost about $400, IBM said.