Final Thoughts
The performance of the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 1TB hard drive was impressive, matching the Western Digital Raptor 150 for load times in games and defeating the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB hard drive in many of our tests. While the Deskstar 7K1000 was slower than the Raptor in terms of transfer speeds, it does offer six and a half times more storage capacity at a little less than twice the price.
The product box of the Deskstar 7K1000 features its capacity in terms of
music and video files, much like we are used to see on MP3 player boxes.
While the performance and capacity of the Deskstar 7K1000 1TB hard drive are impressive, at $399 it is an expensive solution. Given the most expensive 500GB hard drives cost just $150, it makes little sense to purchase the Deskstar 7K1000 1TB. However those after the maximum amount of storage space possible will love what the Deskstar 7K1000 1TB has to offer.
Recently I tested the new Synology Cube Station CS407e which costs $550. The Cube Station CS407e is a network storage device that can support up to four hard drives. When testing, I stocked the Cube Station with four 500GB Seagate hard drives, giving the unit a 2TB storage capacity. I find some sense in thinking that those purchasing expensive network storage solutions such as the Cube Station, will probably like to juice as much capacity out of the unit as possible. Therefore products such as the Deskstar 7K1000 1TB can prove to be invaluable to these users.
Also to keep in mind is the release of the Seagate 4-platter 1TB hard drive which is just around the corner. Once competition hits the door, the pricing of these storage monsters is most likely to become very competitive. But for now the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 is an excellent option for those looking to maximize their storage capacity, not to mention we were impressed by its capabilities in the performance department.
It is amazing to think that in 1992 hard drives had only reached 1GB, while today, 15 years later, hard drives have reached 1,000 times that!