The Deskstar brand is infamous among enthusiasts, and not just because it's a thinly-veiled attempt to tickle the Star Wars obsession that lives in the hearts of most geeks. First, there was the 75GXP failure fiasco, which fueled not only a class action lawsuit, but also our longest running comment thread. IBM eventually sold its hard drive business to Hitachi, which kept the Deskstar name intact despite the (probably undeserved) stigma associated with the name.

Under Hitachi's tutelage, the Deskstar again made headlines, this time as the first hard drive to hit the terabyte mark. This was quite an achievement at the time—Hitachi had to squeeze a whopping five platters into the drive to hit 1TB, and it took a while for the competition to catch up. But that was nearly two years ago, and time hasn't been kind to the first 3.5" terabyte. Areal densities have risen dramatically, allowing other drive makers to build terabyte drives with as few as three platters. Drives with fewer platters tend to be quieter and require less power, and with higher areal densities, they're quicker as well.

Not content to be left out, Hitachi has updated its Deskstar line with a new terabyte model primed for enterprise. With three 334GB platters, this fresh E7K1000 should easily outclass the original. The real question, however, is how it fares against the latest terabyte drives from Western Digital, Seagate, and Samsung. Join us as we put the E7K1000 through its paces against the best the competition has to offer to find out.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16130