Hitachi was the first company to break the 500GB barrier, and as a result, the company is already on its third generation of half-terabyte drives. Unlike Hitachi's earlier 500GB drives, which had five 100GB platters, and were very hot and noisy, the T7K500 HDT725050VLA360 has three 166GB platters. As a result, the T7K500 HDT725050VLA360 is much quieter and a good deal faster than its predecessors.

As with all the 500GB drives in this Labs test, the platters in the T7K500 HDT725050VLA360 spin at 7,200rpm, and the controller is equipped with a 16MB buffer. As an offshoot of its high capacity, the T7K500 HDT725050VLA360 has the highest areal density of any T7K500 drive. As is the case with most Hitachi drives, the T7K500 HDT725050VLA360 scored fairly poorly in our Paint Shop Pro test, lagging behind the other 500GB drives, but it was quick at loading Far Cry, completing this task in just 39 seconds. However, at £112.79, each gigabyte of the T7K500 HDT725050VLA360 will set you back 23p, so it isn't very competitive value for money, even if you're a hardcore gamer.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

• OCZ Core Series 30GB - Hard disks / storage
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - Hard disks / storage
• Asus EAH4870 TOP - Graphics cards
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Sound cards
• Multiwinia - Games
• Zotac GeForce GTX 260² - Graphics cards
• Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 - Graphics cards