Saving a few watts by using a more energy efficient hard drive isn’t high on the list of priorities for most businesses and your average computer user. The savings in electricity for most of us won’t offset the cost of replacing a hard drive. However, for large data centers saving a few watts per hard drive can equate to millions of dollars.

Hitachi has announced its latest energy efficient hard drive aimed at the enterprise market called the Ultrastar C10K300. The drive spins at 10,000 RPM and connects to servers via an SAS interface. The drive has a 2.5-inch form factor helping to save space in crowded server environments.

Hitachi says that the drive needs 70% less physical space than similar 3.5-inch drives and consumes 65% less power than similar 3.5-inch drives. The C10K300 needs 3.4 watts of power at idle and 6.1 watts in active operating mode, which Hitachi says are best in class numbers. The drives can be had in 147GB to 300GB capacities and are available now.

Hitachi