It wasn't too long ago that Hitachi announced their intentions to release a 1TB desktop HDD this year. Well, that time has come to pass and they are now shipping the drive. Composed of 4 250GB platters and with a 32MB cache, the drive is currently available as SATA only but will likely come to PATA as well. The drive comes at a premium, with estimated prices in the U.S. being around $400, but that will likely quickly drop once other manufacturers begin to follow suit. This definitely does give Hitachi a leg up, with 750GB being tops until now.
It was just about 12 years ago when 1GB was first reached on the desktop, making this drive a 1000-fold improvement in just over a decade. While the cost of the drive is high, the cost per gigabyte is still obscenely low compared to just a few years ago and it seems it will continue to do such. Now if only flash could compare in terms of raw storage capacity.