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Hitachi makes new eco-friendly hard drive

Hitachi announces a new CinemaStar 2.5-inch hard drive that offers capacities up to 500GB and features an eco-friendly, low power consumption design.

Dong Ngo SF Labs Manager, Editor / Reviews
CNET editor Dong Ngo has been involved with technology since 2000, starting with testing gadgets and writing code for CNET Labs' benchmarks. He now manages CNET San Francisco Labs, reviews 3D printers, networking/storage devices, and also writes about other topics from online security to new gadgets and how technology impacts the life of people around the world.
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Dong Ngo

Hitachi on Wednesday joined the crowd of green-storage vendors with its fourth generation of the CinemaStar hard-drive family.

The new CinemaStar hard drive. Hitachi

The new drive features Hitachi's EcoTrac Classification. This means it's halogen-free and has very low power consumption. The new CinemaStar features a read/write power specification of 1.4W--a reduction of 22 percent compared to previous models.

Other that that, this is a 2.5-inch (laptop) SATA hard drive that has the spinning speed of 5,400 rpm, which is popular though slower than the 7,200 rpm of some higher-end drives.

According to Hitachi, its new CinemaStar hard drive is best suited for digital video applications that require compact design and low power usage, such as slim digital video recorders, set-top boxes, and surveillance systems.

This is because the new CinemaStar supports Hitachi's SmoothStream technology that enhances streaming functionality in digital video application and is designed for ultraquiet operation.

The new CinemaStar drive will be available in capacities ranging between 160GB and 500GB and is expected to ship during the second quarter of the year. For now, it's unclear how much the drive will cost.