Tag: hitachi

Hitachi said that it plans this year to at least double the capacity of its 1-inch Microdrive hard-disk drive, which is currently used in Apple’s iPod mini. “At present Hitachi’s most capacious Microdrive can hold 4GB of data, but the new drives, due in the second half of this year, will be able to hold between 8GB and 10GB, said Bill Healy, senior vice president of product strategy and marketing at HGST.

Hitachi said it plans to unveil a 6GB version of its tiny hard drive that Apple uses in the popular iPod mini. Pete Andreyev, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies vice president for the Asia-Pacific region, said this week that the new 1-inch Microdrive would be released in the fourth quarter of this year. As widely reported, Apple currently uses a 4GB version of the Hitachi drive in the portable audio player.

Hitachi said on Sunday that it plans to spend about US$200 million to double the hard disk drive output of its Thailand factory, including the 1-inch 4GB Microdrives that are used in the iPod Mini. The company said Microdrive production will rise to about 2 million units per quarter by the end of 2004, up from 200,000 in the first three months of this year.

Hitachi today said its supply of 1-inch disk drives could not meet demand and that it would boost production at its Thailand plant as soon as possible, reports Reuters. Yesterday Apple announced that it new iPod mini would not be released worldwide until July due to inadequate supplies of the hard drives required.

Tight supplies of the tiny Hitachi hard drive at the core of the iPod mini forced Apple to delay increasing manufacturing (and worldwide availability) until July. “We’re actually consuming just about all the 4 gigabyte, 1-inch drives they make. As they make more, we’ll get more,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of hardware product marketing.

Hitachi plans to announce this week a massive 400GB hard drive, according to CNET News.com. “The new drive has a capacity of 400GB, spins at 7,200 revolutions per minute and uses ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) interface technology, according to a source close to Hitachi. The drive can come with either the parallel ATA interface long used in desktop computers or the newer Serial ATA interface.

Hitachi today introduced the company’s fourth generation DVD camcorders at the 2004 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The new models, the UltraVision Digital DZ-MV550A and DZ-MV580A, add a lighter chassis with a more comfortable grip and a new Quick Mode menu function that allows for easier navigation through the camcorder’s menu system. Additionally, the DZ-MV580A adds an optional 16×9 widescreen filming format for DVD-RAM recording.

Apple is using a small hard drive from Hitachi in its new iPod mini, according to CNET News.com. “The 4GB drive, which measures 1-inch across, marks Hitachi’s second major contract in the music player field. Last October, Dell came out with a music player that contained a 1.8-inch Hitachi drive.

Hitachi today added a new high-contrast 20.1″ flat-panel LCD display to its line of high performance monitors.

Hitachi today introduced the CML 174, a new 17″ LCD monitor that has almost half the response time of any other flat-panel monitor on the market, making it “ideal for gaming, animation, digital signage, multi-media driven applications or for general users viewing video over the World Wide Web.” The display offers a 1280×1024 resolution, 400:1 contrast ratio, 160-degree horizontal and vertical viewing angles, and sports a black or ivory appearance.