Hitachi Global Storage Technologies unveiled the Ultrastar C10K900 series. This new line includes 300 GB, 450 GB, 600 GB and 900 GB HDDs which feature a 2.5-inch form factor, a SAS (Serial attached SCSI) 6.0 Gbps interface, 64 MB of cache, an average seek times of 3.8 milliseconds, an average latency of 3.0 ms, and an operating/idle power draw of 5.8/3.0 W. A Bulk Data Encryption option will also be available on specific models.

According to Hitachi, its new enterprice Ultrastar drives deliver 18% higher sequential and up to 17% higher random performance than the nearest competitor, and are perfect for Tier 1 enterprise networked storage arrays, or for blades and other rack-mounted servers.

The Ultrastar C10K900 hard drives have begun shipping in small quantities and will go into volume production in Q1 2012.