Hitachi has unveiled the world’s most power efficient desktop harddrive; Deskstar P7K500. According to the manufacturer self, the power saving features of P7K500 will reduce the power consumption by as much as 40 % both when idle and during load. This means that the 250 GB model only consumes 3.6 W when idle, while the “larger” models consumes 4.8 W when idle. The load figures of the same drives are 6.4 W and 8.2 W respectively. The higher power consumption of the bigger models is because they use two platters instead of one as the 250 GB model does.
Even if desktop harddrives are far from the biggest power hogs inside a computer it’s always nice to see more power efficient components. The complete specifications for Hitachi P7K500 are as follows;
Technical specifications:
Deskstar P7K500
250/320/400/500GB
185 billion bits per square inch maximum areal density
2/1 platters, 4/2 recording heads
1138 Mb/s max. media data rate
7200 RPM, 4.17 ms average latency
PATA-133 and 3Gb/s SATA
8 MB (single disk)/8MB and 16MB (two disk) data buffer
26.1 mm in height (max)
550 in weight (max)
350 G/2 ms non-operating shock
3.6/4.8 watt idle power
2.6/2.8 Bels typical idle acoustics
0 to 60 degrees C ambient temperature (operating)
