Hitachi GST and Intel Sign Joint Development Agreement for Enterprise-Class Solid-State Drives

Intel Corporation and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced plans to jointly develop and deliver Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Fibre Channel (FC) enterprise-class solid-state drives (SSDs) for servers, workstations and storage systems.

The combination of a leading Enterprise drive supplier with a NAND technology and manufacturing leader will produce world-class solutions in terms of reliability, performance and system compatibility. The two companies will work together exclusively to deliver enterprise SSDs with SAS and FC interfaces, with the first products expected to be available in early 2010.

The new generation of solid-state drive technology complements existing enterprise-class hard disk drives (HDDs) and is intended for use in storage applications that require extremely high Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) performance and power efficiency.

The new SSDs will be branded and exclusively sold and supported by Hitachi GST and use Intel NAND flash memory and SSD technology. Hitachi GST has expertise in drive firmware, reliability, qualification and system integration that, together with Intel’s technology and manufacturing capabilities, is expected to deliver world-class solutions with the performance and reliability that enterprise storage customers demand.

Hitachi GST will continue to provide its OEM customers with a comprehensive portfolio of enterprise storage products that includes traditional HDDs and forthcoming SSDs. Intel will continue to develop, market and sell its award-winning product lines of high-performance SATA SSDs.

"The new solid-state drives for the enterprise include a number of architectural breakthroughs and improve performance and energy usage models that will change enterprise computing,” said Randy Wilhelm, vice president and general manager, Intel NAND Solutions Group. "Intel and Hitachi GST share a common objective in delivering SAS/FC products based on solid-state technology that will help enterprise customers meet the skyrocketing demands for performance while reducing space, power and cooling costs.”

"We understand the needs of today’s enterprise customers and are committed to delivering breakthrough products that increase their data center performance and reduce total cost of ownership,” said Shinjiro Iwata, executive vice president, Strategic Business Operations, Hitachi GST. "By expanding our product line-up to include both traditional enterprise hard drives and new SSDs, Hitachi GST will continue to provide customers with a proven set of products tailored to meet the high-performance, high-reliability requirements of today’s data center.”

About Intel Corporation

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), the world leader in silicon innovation, develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom and blogs.intel.com. For more about Intel SSD products go to www.intel.com/go/ssd.

About Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies develops advanced hard disk drives to store and preserve the world’s valued data. Founded by the pioneers of hard drives, Hitachi GST enables users to fully engage in the digital lifestyle by providing high-value, high-capacity storage in formats suitable for the office, in the home or on the road. With vertically integrated research, design and manufacturing capabilities, Hitachi GST delivers leadership technology and quality to its global customer base.

With approximately 32,000 employees worldwide, Hitachi GST offers a comprehensive range of hard drive products for desktop computers, high-performance storage systems and servers, notebooks and consumer devices. For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.hitachigst.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT) (TSE:6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 390,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2007 (ended March 31, 2008) consolidated revenues totaled 11,226 billion Yen ($112.3 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials, logistics and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://hitachi.com.

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