Hitachi Global Storage System has now taken the veil off not one but two 4 TB storage solutions, the Deskstar 5K4000 3.5-inch hard drive which we mentioned on Friday, and a 4 TB Touro Desk external drive. The 4 TB Deskstar HDD features a 3.5-inch form factor, a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, 32 MB of buffer, it utilizes the CoolSpin technology (~ 5900 RPM) and is currently shipping in limited quantities in both OEM and retail versions. The retail package, which includes the drive, mounting screws, and install instructions, costs $399.99.

The 4 TB Touro Desk is equipped with one Deskstar 5K4000, has a black, textured body, a USB 3.0 interface, and offers 3 GB of cloud storage for free from HitachiBackup.com. This drive will ship in January and will cost $419.99.

While the hard drive industry as a whole continues to be affected by the Thailand floods, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) is ending 2011 on a high note by starting shipments of its first 4 TB 3.5-inch HDD. Codenamed HDS5C4040ALE630 and likely part of the Deskstar 5K (we're guessing 5K4000) series, the 4TB drive has yet to be announced by Hitachi but it can be found on sale in Japan, priced at 26,800 yen (~ US $ 345 / 259 Euro).

Hitachi's 4 TB hard drive has 32 MB of buffer memory, a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface and makes use of the CoolSpin technology, which means its (likely four) platters operate at around 5900 RPM. No word yet on a 7200 RPM version but it's probably in the cards for 2012.

As the first to ship a multi-disk 1TB hard disk drive (HDD) in 2007, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced that is has achieved yet another 1TB milestone by squeezing it on a single disk. Leveraging the company's strong R&D heritage and time-to-market leadership, the new one terabyte per platter (1TB/platter), one-disk, Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D drive family is now shipping worldwide. Featured in both Deskstar and CinemaStar brands, Hitachi is providing a full range of capacities, 250GB - 1TB, on both low RPM CoolSpin and 7,200 RPM platforms.

With the addition of the new Deskstar and CinemaStar drives, which are first in a family of 1TB/platter drives, Hitachi continues to offer one of the broadest most reliable product lines for desktop and mobile solutions. For the ultra thin and light notebook market, Hitachi delivers the 7mm z-height Travelstar Z5K500 drives (636 gigabits per square inch "Gb/in²"). And now, ideal for high-performing desktop computers and the consumer electronics (CE) market, Hitachi presents the new 1TB/platter Deskstar and CinemaStar family drives (569 Gb/in²).