Hitachi CinemaStar Drives Cut Noise, Power

The latest 320Gb and 500GB CinemaStar drives have been designed to run quietly, in hot environments, with a minimum of power usage, making them ideal for low-profile HTPCs.

You might think that tossing any old hard drive into a black PC case and hooking it up to a TV makes a perfectly fine home theater PC, but Hitachi wants you to throw away that dorm room mentality and think again. For those demanding a little more refinement for their HTPCs, the company introduced two new CinemaStar drives on Wednesday, tailored specifically to the noise, power and heat limitations of HTPCs.

The 2.5-inch C5K320 and 3.5-inch 5K500, which boast storage of 320GB and 500GB capacities, respectively, have both been equipped with Hitachi’s silent-seek acoustics to keep the whir of spinning hard drive platters from ruining 2001: A Space Odyssey, and built to endure higher heat (as you’ll find in an entertainment center cabinet) as well. SmoothStream technology allows the drives to read or write for long periods, as they might be expected to do when capturing video or streaming it, without hiccupping.

The 5K500 will also be the first of Hitachi’s CinemaStar drives to feature CoolSpin technology, a design that should cut back on power usage and noise at the same time. Hitachi says the hard drive’s specialized motor limits peak current during spin-up and enables the drive to run continuously with less power, both attributes desirable in an HTPC drive.

Although Hitachi has announced that the drives will be available in June, prices have not yet been revealed.