Hitachi has announced what it claims is the world's first 1TB desktop hard drive, pledging to ship the beast later this quarter, with enterprise- and consumer electronics-oriented versions to follow in Q2.

The 3.5in Desktar 7K1000 will cost $399 at retail, but Hitachi will also offer a cheaper, 750GB model too. The drive spins at 7,200rpm and connects across a 3Gbps SATA bus, though the media data rate peaks at just over 1Gbps. It has 32MB of on-board buffer memory, a 8.7ms average seek time and a 4.17ms average latency.

Hitachi's announcement is the first formal introduction of a 1TB desktop drive. That said, Seagte is expected to announce a 1TB unit of its own next week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Like the Hitachi drive, Seagate's product will use the perpendicular recording technique. Seagate is indicating an H1 shipping window, but it may well narrow that down next week in light of the Hitachi announcement today. ®