Dell and its Alienware subsidiary have begun offering buyers the chance to configure new gaming desktop PCs with Hitachi's 1TB hard drive - enough space to store an almost inconceivable quantity of digital stuff.

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 - announced earlier this year - is available to install in new Dell XPS desktops, and Alienware Aurora and Area 51 machines. The 7,200rpm HDD connects across a 3Gbps SATA interface. It has 32MB of cache and is rated at 8.7ms for average seek time and 4.17ms for average latency.

Its capacity comes at a cost, mind you. Dell wants an extra $540 above and beyond the cost of a 160GB SATA HDD to fit the drive.

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