Hitachi beats Seagate to 1TB! And it's a screamer!

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
C

cb62fcni

Distinguished
Jul 15, 2006
921
0
18,980
Well, I must say that this surprised me, but Hitachi not only beat Seagate to 1TB, they've managed to produce a drive that can directly compete with the WD raptor at many times the capacity. And the $399 price tag is competitive, to say the least. Looks like Seagate will be playing catch-up now.

Hitachi 7K1000
 
Well, I must say that this surprised me, but Hitachi not only beat Seagate to 1TB, they've managed to produce a drive that can directly compete with the WD raptor at many times the capacity. And the $399 price tag is competitive, to say the least. Looks like Seagate will be playing catch-up now.

Hitachi 7K1000
Click to expand...
Great link!
It seems Hitachi wants to be taken seriously.
 
I think the most significant thing is that this drive shows a new way forward. Great strides can be made simply by increasing data density, without having to resort to a 10K rpm, or faster, spindle. It seems like it still has some weaknesses in sequential write and read, but as the article stated, they seem to have geared the firmware more toward non-sequential tasking. If the trend of increasing density from the Seagate .10 series to this drive holds, the next few generations could possibly be SCSI killers.
 
The article mentions that they'll be releasing the drive in an eSATA enclosure specifically for HTPC/DVR use. That might be your best bet, put one in the case and run the other externally.
 
Not sure which mobo or case yet, but Lian Li HTPC cases are at the top of the list.

This build won't be until Q3 or Q4 so by that time Conroe's successor should be available. I just might transplant my MSI 975X Platinum mobo and E6600 CPU into the HTPC and build a new primary rig.
 
One minor problem.

It can only be purchased with a dell at the moment. Its going to take a while for supplies to build up enough that they can hit the open market in any numbers.

But, this is the only Hitachi drive I would even consider buying since the 7200 rpm laptop drives.
 
Whoa, hold on there peeps.

I know this thing's STR profile looks awesome, besting even the Raptor.

But let's not forget, it is still a 7200 RPM drive with ~ 14.0 msec access times. It's nowhere near the Raptor's ~ 8.5 msec access times.

So let's not stretch things by saying the drive is as fast as a Raptor (or a 15K SCSI drive, for that matter). It's not.
 
wow, this is definitely replacing a raptor on taco's things to buy list, man, imagine a 1tb raptor, now that would be something I could only dream of, but then again it would probably run so hot you'd have to water cool for stability

Anyways, excellent job to the op, this find is deserving of a taco :trophy:
Click to expand...

I have to agree with Taco here. The Raptor 150 has been dethroned in favor of this for my rig. The noise rating on these things makes them perfect for use in a HTPC, but also for those of us who are tired of noisy PCs. If I can manage to build a small enough, quiet enough HTPC, then the WAF will go through the roof and I will be a happy camper...

I can tell already this project is going to cost me a fortune...
 
As far as the typical home user is concerned this drive is hands down better than the raptor.

The raptor still has its place however. The workstation environment and entry level server market are still ideal for the Low access times and the high IO that the raptor offers.

I just think with similar sustained throughput and 1TB of storage this drive will take a pretty big bite out of the raptor market.

WD needs to get a higher capacity version out of the gates soon. It shouldnt be far off as other 10K SCSI drives have been sitting at 300GB for a good while now.
 
FYI
Any sata port can become a esata by just a adapter that is a cable attached to a emtey slot filler with an esata connector on it. So you can setup a raid on any sata controllor that supports raid to external devices.

Jim
 
Any sata port can become a esata by just a adapter that is a cable attached to a emtey slot filler with an esata connector on it. So you can setup a raid on any sata controllor that supports raid to external devices.
Click to expand...

Not true. eSATA has some electrical specifications that are tighter than the specifications for SATA. These specifications allow the eSATA cables to reach 2m instead of only 1m.

If an internal SATA port implements the tighter electrical specifications (many do, but not all) then using a bracket to convert the port to an eSATA port is OK. If it doesn't support the tighter electrical specs, then you're asking for trouble by using a bracket converter.
 
Hmm..

My last job we called the hitachi's deskstars, deathstars because we spent a lot of time replacing those hard drives.

Unless Hitachi has seriously made these better, I'll stick with my raptors..
 
Well, I've been running a deskstar or deathstar if you will for almost 3 years now without any major problems, though you seem to have gone through a lot more of them than me
Click to expand...

You are one lucky fellow OR Hitachi has finally put some quality into the product.

It has been about a year since I was at that job, so haven't had to deal with the problem anymore.

Just when you get in 100+ systems and you are replacing these drives faster than you can image them and get them out, something is wrong.

All the drives failed and were replaced, some multiple times.

Bad batch? Don't know..

As for the too much money comment, let me say this, most intel fanbois, and AMD Fanbois too, put more into their CPU than I do into just 2 hard drives, that have lasted me longer than those CPU's lasted the fanboi's.

You should pick and chose WISELY what you'll overpay for, something that will be replaced within a year, or something you will replace 3 years from now.
 
Actually if you check out the article Hitachi specifically mentions that they used 5 platters of 200GB for reliability purposes.

Hitachi said they could have used 4x 250GB platters now but the reliability didnt work out, though they will use 250GB platters in the future.

So hopefully this works out to make a more reliable platform for Hitachi and the 1TB monster.
 
Hmm..

My last job we called the hitachi's deskstars, deathstars because we spent a lot of time replacing those hard drives.

Unless Hitachi has seriously made these better, I'll stick with my raptors..
Click to expand...

Sure the number 1TB looks good, but I wouldn't jump in just yet. I've seen many dead Hitachi 3.5" drives from my work place, which we end up replacing with all Seagate drives. The Hitachi notebook drive seems to do better, but I wouldn't buy or recommend the 3.5" yet until I see quality/reliability improvement.
Thats how it is in business...you get ahead, than someone else gets ahead of you than you play catch up and so on. I remember when Seagate came out with their 750GB drive when others are at 500GB about 8 or 9 months ago. But thats great because we benefit from.

As for sandmanwn, don't feel bad I read some related article about two months ago. :wink:

Cheers! 8)
 
But most adapters do, same way outlet adapters do, it would be pointless for them to just change the head when the device still wouldn't work, the resistance and such is changed to what the device requires when you use a specific adapter for a specific item
Click to expand...

No SATA -> eSATA adapter I know of does anything electrically. The only thing it does is change the connector location (internal to external) and connector form (L-shaped SATA to I-shaped eSATA).

The electrical specifications that change for eSATA involve the lower limit for the transmit voltage and the upper limit for the receive voltage. The bracket adapters have no way of altering these specifications if the SATA chip doesn't support them.
 
Whoa, hold on there peeps.

I know this thing's STR profile looks awesome, besting even the Raptor.

But let's not forget, it is still a 7200 RPM drive with ~ 14.0 msec access times. It's nowhere near the Raptor's ~ 8.5 msec access times.

So let's not stretch things by saying the drive is as fast as a Raptor (or a 15K SCSI drive, for that matter). It's not.
Click to expand...

Check out the real-world performance though. How they've managed to get those load times is beyond me. I'm guessing the extra-large cache plus the firmware optimizations combine to put this thing in the same league as the Raptor. Sure, the Raptor is still faster, but the fact that this thing comes so close is quite amazing. You have to admit, the margin is pretty slim, and the price/performance/capacity stomps all over the Raptor and then whizzes on it. ~.$0.40 per GB vs. ~$0.75 per GB. This may very well signal the beginning of the end for the Raptor unless WD changes its design.
 
Hmm..

My last job we called the hitachi's deskstars, deathstars because we spent a lot of time replacing those hard drives.

Unless Hitachi has seriously made these better, I'll stick with my raptors..
Click to expand...

Sure the number 1TB looks good, but I wouldn't jump in just yet. I've seen many dead Hitachi 3.5" drives from my work place, which we end up replacing with all Seagate drives. The Hitachi notebook drive seems to do better, but I wouldn't buy or recommend the 3.5" yet until I see quality/reliability improvement.
Thats how it is in business...you get ahead, than someone else gets ahead of you than you play catch up and so on. I remember when Seagate came out with their 750GB drive when others are at 500GB about 8 or 9 months ago. But thats great because we benefit from.

As for sandmanwn, don't feel bad I read some related article about two months ago. :wink:

Cheers! 8)

Hahaha, I remember way back around '97 or '98 having to go through and replace a ton of Seagates that crapped out. We used, duh duh duh: Hitachis. Manufacturers have their ups and downs, hopefully these new drives prove to be reliable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom