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Eco-friendly Hard Disk Drives by Fujitsu, Logitec

November 12, 2008 – 2:12 pm | by Steve

What with the recent trend towards greener and more energy efficient products (as in hybrid and hydrogen powered cars, increase in usage of renewable energy, recycling etc) we now find that even the data storage industry is wising up to consumer tastes. Hence the eco-friendly HDDs (Hard Disk Drives) by Fujitsu and Logitec (not of Logitech Switzerland fame).

Although this is probably a Japan exclusive release, the LHD-ED1000U2L 1 terabyte external hard disk drive has (other than the obvious 1 TB of memory) some pretty nice features. These include its eco-friendly power saving solution, its sensible design (it looks decent and simple, we appreciate that) and its USB connectivity. As it uses USB to connect to your PC it will obviously work with Macs as well as Windows systems. On the other hand, the software that controls the amount of time before your “power saving solution” kicks in will only work with Windows according to the product page on the official site.

Just a couple of days ago Fujitsu announced their intentions to release a new series of 2.5″ HDDs for launch in December 2008 (MJA2 BH) and early 2009 (MJA2 CH). The Fujitsu MJA2 CH series is set to be the first 500 GB hard disk drive in the world to feature 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption. In any case, these series of hard disk drives are remarkable because they consume a third less energy in write operations (the more energy intensive operations) as compared to the previous generation. Other key features include reduction to almost negligible amounts of halogens (chlorine and bromine) and also conformity to RoHS (Restriction on the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment) Directive.

Both are certainly more eco-friendly than your average run of the mill storage solutions, the external drive not so much, but hey, every little bit counts!