Leading Device Companies Join Hitachi Digital Home to Showcase Innovative Consumer Application of Miniature, High-Capacity Hard Drives At the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies will demonstrate numerous applications of hard disk drives in consumer devices that increasingly populate the average digital home. These hard-drive-enabled devices by leading consumer electronic device manufacturers will be displayed in Hitachi's digital home at CES, from the family room, to the nursery, to the garage.

"We look forward to delighting visitors with the sheer number of devices that use Hitachi hard drives -- in unexpected and uncommon places -- throughout the home," said Bill Healy, senior vice president, product strategy and marketing, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "Our CES digital home is also a celebration of the successful collaboration that has taken place between Hitachi and our customers to make these devices possible for consumers."

The Hitachi digital home at CES illustrates what the company believes to be the fourth and most exciting era of hard-drive adoption -- the Consumer Era -- in which Hitachi predicts the average digital home will have 10-20 hard drives. The Consumer Era is preceded by the PC Era of the 1980's and 1990's, the Mini Computer Era of the 1960's and 1970's, and the Mainframe Era of the 1950's. Each subsequent era saw the reduction of the physical size of the hard drive, an increase in storage capacity, greater affordability and practical usage, and an ever-growing demand.

Hitachi's hard-drive home can be seen at the Las Vegas Convention Center, exhibit #25342, South Hall, first floor. Rooms within the Hitachi digital home will feature products from device manufacturers listed below among others:

-- Family Room -- Alienware DHS media center system, Argosy HD182 PhotoHardDisk, Creative Portable Media Center, Creative Zen Touch MP3 player, Freecom FHD-XS 1.8" external hard drive, FHD-2 PRO mobile hard drive and FHD-3 3.5" IDE external hard disk with one-button synchronization; Hitachi DVR;

-- Teen Room -- Apricorn EZ Bus Mini portable external storage and the Extreme Upgrade kit for notebook computers, ARCHOS Pocket Video Recorder AV400, MagnetoX 3PM Pocket Disc, ROC Digital MINI ROCBOX MP3 player, Tatung Elio Photo Jukebox, Voodoo Vibe F:50 PC and Voodoo Envy M:360 gaming laptop;

-- Nursery -- Apex E2GO series MP2000 portable media player, Dell DJ MP3 player, Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox, Hitachi Microdrive Retail Kit, JVC Everio digital video camera, Shinco PMP-1700 portable movie player, Transcend PhotoBank and StoreJet external storage, Reigncom iRiver H10 1.8C MP3 player;

-- Home office -- Hammer Storage's Pocket Hammer and Desk Hammer external storage and backup solutions, Hitachi 3.5" Retail Kit, Motion Computing M1400 Tablet PC, MSI MegaView 561 personal media player, Olympus E-1 and E-300 digital still cameras, Pexagon Store-It Drive;

-- Garage -- Harman Becker Traffic Pro 7945 car Hifi navigation with Bluetooth and speech dialog system, Horizon NavMate HD500 Navigation Computer, iVDR, Navman iCN 650 GPS device, Samsung YH-820 MP3.

Broadest Product Line-up for Biggest Opportunity

The hard drive opportunity for consumer electronics is the fastest-growing segment in the industry. According to IDC(1), the HDD industry will ship more than 70 million hard drives for consumer electronics in 2007, accounting for about 20% of all HDDs.

Hitachi is in the best position to take advantage of this growing market opportunity by offering the broadest porfolio of small-form-factor hard drives tailored for CE devices. Hitachi's hard drives range from one-inch, to 1.8-inch, to 2.5-inch, to 3.5-inch and provide storage for applications such as MP3 jukeboxes, portable/automotive audio and video players, digital still/video cameras, navigation devices, set-top boxes, digital video recorders, gaming machines, external storage, mobile phones and many more.

In separate announcements today, Hitachi will be adding the following industry-leading products to its CE hard drive portfolio in 2005:

-- "Mikey," the baby Microdrive -- the world's smallest, highest-capacity one-inch hard drive at 8-10 GB;

-- Travelstar "Slim" -- the world's smallest and lightest 1.8-inch hard drive;

-- Deskstar 7K500 -- the world's highest capacity 3.5-inch SATA hard drive, at 500 GB, for high-end media center PCs, DVRs, nearline storage and other enterprise ATA applications;

-- Deskstar T7K250 -- this new 250 GB drive includes SATA II features and Hitachi's Smooth Stream technology for use in DVR and other AV applications;

-- Deskstar 7K80 -- at 40 and 80 GB of capacity, this drive satisfies the needs of mainstream consumer PC customers.

(1)Source: IDC, Worldwide Hard Disk Drive 2004-2008 Forecast and Analysis, IDC #31208, May 2004.