Hitachi unveils 2.5″ 7mm & 9.5mm CinemaStar HDDs for AV

Hitachi has announced its new family of CinemaStar 2.5″ hard disks for set-top boxes such as DVRs, Satellite/Cable PVRs, including traditional and ultra-slim models. The family includes 7mm models for ultra-slim boxes and high capacity 9.5mm models, all featuring quiet acoustics and optimised for 24/7 recording, such as in a CCTV DVR.

The CinemaStar Z7K500 family features include 7mm height, 7200 RPM spindle, SATA 6Gb/s, 32MB cache and come in a choice of 250GB, 320GB and 500GB. These are intended for high performance AV streaming. The C5K1000 family features include a 9.5mm standard height, 5400 RPM spindle, a low 24dB idle noise level, 1.5W max power and come in a choice of 640GB, 750GB and 1TB. Finally, the Z5K500 family features include 7mm height, 5400 RPM spindle, 1.4W max power, a very low 19dB idle noise level and come in a choice of 250GB, 320GB and 500GB.

As streaming is mainly sequential, it does seem unusual why a set-top box would need a 7200RPM high performance HDD, but for boxes that run an OS off the HDD, this would make sense. The 7mm 7200RPM HDDs would probably also make a nice fast HDD for laptops.

The CinemaStar range is now shipping in limited quantities.