International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2012 - Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced that it has added two new hard drives to its portfolio of high quality solutions - the 1TB Travelstar 5K1000 and the 4TB Deskstar 7K4000. Both hard drives will ship in its line of G-Technology branded solutions, which are exclusively designed for the Apple® Mac® and content creation community.

G-Technology G-DRIVE mobile and G-DRIVE mobile USB with 1TB Travelstar 5K1000 Hard Drives

Perfect for on-the-go Mac users, the G-Technology G-DRIVE mobile and G-DRIVE mobile USB are stylish and thin portable drives designed for your Apple MacBook®, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air®. With Mac plug and play simplicity, and storage capacities up to 1TB¹ using Hitachi 5,400 RPM drives, you'll find that the G-DRIVE mobile solutions are perfect for storing your most important documents, MP3s, digital video and photo files. Wrapped up in their sleek enclosure is the new, rugged Hitachi Travelstar 5K1000 hard drive. The Travelstar 5K1000 is the first 1TB 2.5-inch drive with a 6Gb/s SATA interface and delivers the highest 5,400 RPM performance in both PCMark® Vantage and PCMark7 testing². The G-DRIVE mobile offers both USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 connectivity for fast data transfers, while the G-DRIVE mobile USB offers ubiquitous USB 2.0. Both drives are Time Machine® ready and are bus powered so when you're out and about you don't need to add an external AC power supply to your laptop case. The new G-Technology G-DRIVE mobile USB drive will be shipping in limited quantities in January to online and retail stores. Suggested retail pricing will be $179.99 for 1TB and $149.99 for 750GB. The 1TB G-DRIVE mobile will be shipping Q1'12 with an MSRP of $199.99.

G-Technology G-RAID and G-DRIVE solutions with 4TB Deskstar 7K4000, 7,200 RPM Hard Drives

Known for delivering performance, style and reliability, G-Technology's well-known G-RAID and G-DRIVE solutions now feature Hitachi's massive 4TB, 7,200 RPM Deskstar 7K4000 hard drives. The new power-efficient, high-quality and high-performance Deskstar 7K4000 drive boasts a 6Gb/s SATA interface and 64MB cache buffer, helping the G-DRIVE and G-RAID solutions provide quick access to data. Featuring nothing but 7,200 RPM hard drives and an all-aluminum enclosure for a cool operation, both G-Technology external drives offer the ultimate in flexibility by providing 3Gbit eSATA, FireWire 800 (FireWire 400 via included cable) and USB2.0 ports. The G-RAID and G-DRIVE solutions are formatted for Mac OS X systems right out of the box and are Time Machine ready. A simple initialization is required to prepare the drives for use with Windows® systems.³ Specific product details include:

  • G-RAID - The G-Technology G-RAID is a blazing fast, dual drive RAID 0 storage solution with capacities up to 8TB. Ideal for professional content creators, it supports simultaneous playback of multiple layers of HDV, DVCPRO HD, XDCAM HD and ProRes 422 HQ with the leading video editing applications including Final Cut Pro?, Adobe® Premiere® and many more. The G-RAID solution is capable of delivering up to 200 MB/second transfer rate when connected to any Mac or PC via eSATA. Its soft-touch On/Off switch and thermo-regulated "smart" fan keeps the G-RAID reliable, cool and quiet in the editing suite. Shipping in Q1'12, the 8TB G-RAID will have an MSRP of $899.99.
  • G-DRIVE - The G-Technology G-DRIVE is a professional strength external hard drive in a single-drive desktop solution. With capacities now up to 4TB, G-DRIVE is the perfect high-performance solution for storage intensive applications including A/V editing, digital photography, music libraries, and high-speed data backup. The drive features a fan-less cooling system for a quiet operation. The 4TB G-Technology G-DRIVE will be shipping in limited quantities in Q1'12. Suggested retail pricing will be $449.99 for 4TB, $349.99 for 3TB, $249.99 for 2TB and $199.99 for 1TB.

"Whether you're looking for a RAID solution, desktop solution or portable hard drive, G-Technology continues to deliver the most trusted external storage solutions available," said Mike Williams, vice president and general manager of Hitachi GST Branded Business. "Our G-RAID and G-DRIVE solutions have been the cornerstone in many gear bags and post production houses as content creators need big, fast and reliable storage. Our new solutions with Hitachi Travelstar and Deskstar hard drives are a welcomed addition to our family as they give our customers more tools with higher capacities to use in their digital environments."

Hitachi GST will be shipping its Travelstar 5K1000 and Deskstar 7K4000 drives to OEMs, distributors and channel partners in Q1 2012.

Stay connected with G-Technology:

Facebook: G-Technology

Twitter: @GTechbyHitachi

YouTube: GTechStorage

Flickr: G-Technology

About Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) develops advanced hard disk drives, Enterprise-class solid state drives, innovative external storage solutions and services used to store, preserve and manage the world's most valued data. Founded by the pioneers of hard drives, Hitachi GST provides high-value storage for a broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Personal Storage. Hitachi GST was established in 2003 and maintains its U.S. headquarters in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachigst.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT) (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 360,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2010 (ended March 31, 2011) consolidated revenues totaled 9,315 billion yen ($112.2 billion). Hitachi will focus more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes information and telecommunication systems, power systems, environmental, industrial and transportation systems, and social and urban systems, as well as the sophisticated materials and key devices that support them. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com.

Hitachi GST remains an independent company until the acquisition by Western Digital closes, anticipated to take place by March 2012. Our product portfolio has been a driver of our success. Until the close, we continue to execute plans for our communicated product roadmap and both companies intend to ship all product lines in parallel until their logical end of life. Customers can rest assured that when the acquisition is complete all Hitachi GST terms and conditions of the product warranty in effect at the time of purchase will be honored.

One GB is equal to one billion bytes and one TB equals 1,000 GB (one trillion bytes). One PB is equal to 1,000 TB (one quadrillion bytes).

G-Technology external hard drives serve as an element of an overall backup strategy. It is recommended that users keep two or more copies of their most important files backed up or stored on separate devices or online services.

¹Actual capacity will vary depending on operating environment and formatting.

² Overall performance was benchmarked using PCMark Vantage and PCMark7 on a test system that consisted of a Dell Precision M4600, Intel QM67 Express Chipset with 6Gb/s SATA, Intel Core i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz, 8GB RAM, and AMD ATI FirePro M5950 Graphics, running Win7 Pro SP1 x64.

³ G-RAID and G-DRIVE solutions greater than 2TB are not supported by Windows XP or older 32-bit operating systems, which limit maximum volume size to 2.2TB. G-RAID and G-DRIVE solutions greater than 2TB are compatible with Mac OS X, Windows Vista or other 64-bit operating systems.

G-Technology, G-DRIVE, G-RAID, Deskstar and Travelstar are trademarks of Hitachi GST. Hitachi trademarks are authorized for use in countries and jurisdictions in which Hitachi has the right to market the brands. Hitachi is not liable for third parties' unauthorized use of Hitachi trademarks. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
Erin Hartin, 303-284-7790 (Office)
erin.hartin@hitachigst.com
or
Voce Communications
Katie Watson, 408-439-2002 (Cell)
kwatson@vocecomm.com