Hitachi Ultrastar A7K200 - Most Powerful Hard Drive To Date - 7200 RPM, 2TB

This week, on August 11, 2009, Hitachi announced the release of the latest addition to their family of Enterprise-Class Hard Drives, the new Ultrastar A7K2000.

It delivers enormous capacity, combined with 7200 RPM performance, reliability and enterprise-class mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) of a whopping 1.2 million hoursThe Ultrastar A7K2000 has been designed with the best interests of the environment too, offering highly competitive power efficiency. The Hitachi GST Ultrastar A7K2000 is the fourth generation, high capacity hard drive rolling off Hitachi's production lines, and is clearly in a class of its own with its 2 Terrabyte (2TB) storage capacity.

While the storage capacity has doubled from its predecessor, the A7K1000, its size has not increased. In fact, the A7K2000 has been outfitted with its massive 2TB storage capacity, without taking up any more space than the original 3.5 inch A7K1000 drive. Same size, double the capacity.

The Ultrastar A7K2000 is reported to be the 'industry’s first enterprise-class, 7,200 RPM 2TB hard disk drive' according to Todd Gresham, senior vice president, Networked Storage Solutions, Xyratex.

The (double the capacity) Ultrastar A7K2000 can be integrated into existing storage systems with no hassle, due to the fact that the 3.5 inch encasing occupies the same size as its predecessor, while drawing less power. Same size, double the capacity, requiring less power - not a bad combination of attributes I would say.

Couple that with Hitachi GST's five year warranty, and its reputation as a reliable, global storage partner among users around the world, and the new drive may very well be a popular choice among users. The size and capacity make it ideal for use in data centers, and at an operating speed of 7200 RPM, the overall performance is better than drives operating at a lower RPM - and it uses less power than these slower RPM drives.

So how much better you ask? Compared to the Ultrastar A7K1000, Hitachi claims impovements of 155 percent in data transfer rates, and a massive 120 percent improvement in watts-per-GB. A 36 percent reduction in power consumption during low RPM idle mode, means data centers will most likely save a significant amount in terms of cost for temperature control within the data centers, which need to be cooled to maintain a constant temperature for optimum hardware and equipment performance.

Furthermore, the Ultrastar A7K2000 is RoHS compliant, and also halogen free. The 2TB Ultrastar A7K2000 is now available globally, while the 1TB and 500GB versions should be available soon.

Just some of the other types of hard drives available from Hitachi include the Deskstar, Travelstar, CinemaStar and Endurastar.

Isn't technology wonderful? I would say so :)

Source: Hitachi

Breakthrough In Quantum Computing

ambridge and Birmingham University physicists have shown that electrons present in narrow wires are able to split into two particles called spinons and holons.

Electrons are fundamental building blocks of nature and cannot be split in isolation, yet when they are crowded into narrow wires, the electrons then split apart.

An electron carries electricity within wires, and is also responsible for making magnets.

It is interesting that that both electric charge and magnetism are properties that are carried by electrons, and under normal circumstances, an electron cannot be broken apart.

The scenario seems to change however when electrons are brought together. what happens is that the similarly charged electrons seem to change the way they behave when grouped, in order to avoid getting to close to each other.

When used in ordinary methods, this usually does not make too much of a difference to the electrons' behaviour. In a very narrow wire however, these electrons find it much more difficult to avoid each other, and the resulting effect is that movement of the electrons are exacerbated, as they try to avoid each other.

Already in 1981, a physicist called Duncan Haldane claimed that this would happen under the lowest temperatures. The two properties that these electrons possess, magnetism and electrical charge, would seem to cause the electrons to split in order for these properties to remain separate. Hence, the electron splits into two new types of particle called spinons and holons.

The challenge for the physicists was to group together the electrons so tightly in a 'quantum wire', and then bring the wire close enough to an ordinary metal, in order for the electrons in the metal to 'jump' into the wire by quantum tunneling.

By applying a magnetic field they were able to observe how the electron needed to fall apart into the two new properties - spinons and halons.

Dr Chris Ford from the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory says, 'We had to develop the technology to pass a current between a wire and a sheet only 30 atomic widths apart.'

The measurments needed to be made at a very low temperature - about one tenth of a degree above absolute zero.

The consensus from this experiment is that this behaviour may form the basis of the future quantum computer. The reasoning behind this is because of the fact that Quantum wires are widely used to connect up quantum 'dots'. Dr Chris Ford was quoted as saying that this could lead to a new computer revolution.

The basic principle behind the quantum computer theory is that quantum properties can be used to represent data, and then perform operations on these data. At the moment many national government and military funding agencies support research on quantum computing.

Experiment performed in Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory with theoretical support from scientists at the University of Birmingham's School of Physics and Astronomy.

Source and more info: University of Cambridge