Hitachi GST Announces Innovative Hitachi Ultrastar Solid State Drives Now Shipping in HP 3PAR Storage Arrays for Utility, Cloud Computing

As the first hard drive supplier to deliver enterprise-class SAS and FC solid state drives (SSD) for the growing enterprise tiered storage market, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced its 3.5-inch Fibre Channel Ultrastar™ SLC –based (single level cell) SSDs are now shipping in HP 3PAR F-Class, T-Class and the new P10000 V-Class storage systems for enterprise and cloud datacenters, as well as for small-to-medium sized businesses. Developed in conjunction with Intel®, the Hitachi Ultrastar SSD400S SSD family provides unique value to OEM customers who are increasingly looking for high-performance, high-endurance enterprise-class SSDs for simple, scalable and flexible integration into new or existing enterprise storage systems or designs.

HP 3PAR systems are designed for agility and efficiency in virtual and cloud data centers. Whether delivering enterprise IT as a utility service or consolidating massive numbers of virtual machines, the advantages of HP 3PAR’s scalable, secure multi-tenancy, autonomic management and thin technologies are significant. HP 3PAR reduces acquisition and related operational costs by up to 50 percent and increases administrative efficiency up to tenfold.1

“Hitachi understands tiered storage needs – from controllers and firmware, to BIOS and operating systems – as well as the importance of delivering the highest data integrity, cost-efficiency and easy system integration,” said Brendan Collins, vice president of Product Marketing at Hitachi GST. “We are gratified that HP has chosen to qualify our SSDs for their storage arrays. Other customer feedback has been similarly positive, continuing Hitachi’s legacy of delivering quality products to the market that are fine-tuned to meet the changing needs of the enterprise datacenter and the cloud.”

“Most data centers today rely on storage architectures built for the business demands of 20 years ago, not for the scale and unpredictability of today’s virtualized environments,” said Peter Slocum, vice president of Engineering, 3PAR, HP. “Hitachi’s new Ultrastar solid state drives for HP 3PAR storage systems deliver the increased reliability, performance, data protection as well as power loss management capabilities that customers demand in mission critical virtualization and cloud data center applications.”

Hitachi GST Ultrastar SSD400S SLC SSDs

The Ultrastar SSD400S family combines enterprise-grade NAND flash, proprietary endurance firmware and power loss management techniques to extend the reliability, endurance and sustained performance of the new SSD family. For complete end-to-end data protection and reliability, the Ultrastar SSD400S family includes advanced data integrity and power loss management technologies that are tied with industry standards to ensure compatibility in multi-tiered SSD/HDD system designs. The new Ultrastar SSD400S family delivers the industry’s highest sequential throughput. It is the first to reach up to 516MB/s read and 458MB/s write throughput with 6Gb/s SAS, and 390MB/s read and 340MB/s write throughput with 4Gb/s FC. The new drive also delivers up to 41,000 read and 21,000 sustained write IOPS for blazing access to “hot” enterprise data for improved productivity and operational efficiency.

Hitachi GST is currently shipping its Ultrastar SSD400S drives in volume. The Ultrastar SSD400S family is backed by a five-year limited warranty, or the maximum petabytes written (based on capacity). Please visit http://www.hitachigst.com/solid-state-drives for more information.

About Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) develops advanced hard disk drives, enterprise-class solid state drives, innovative external storage solutions and services used to store, preserve and manage the world’s most valued data. Founded by the pioneers of hard drives, Hitachi GST provides high-value storage for a broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Personal Storage. Hitachi GST was established in 2003 and maintains its U.S. headquarters in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit the company’s website at http://www.hitachigst.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT) (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 360,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2010 (ended March 31, 2011) consolidated revenues totaled 9,315 billion yen ($112.2 billion). Hitachi will focus more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes information and telecommunication systems, power systems, environmental, industrial and transportation systems, and social and urban systems, as well as the sophisticated materials and key devices that support them. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com.

One GB is equal to one billion bytes, and one TB equals 1,000 GB (one trillion bytes). Actual capacity will vary depending on operating environment and formatting.

Ultrastar is a trademark of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. Hitachi trademarks are authorized for use in countries and jurisdictions in which Hitachi has the right to market the brands. Hitachi is not liable for third parties’ unauthorized use of Hitachi trademarks. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

1 Based on quantified benefits from HP customer results, surveys and interviews after HP 3PAR system deployment.