Cheap 3TB drive?

[DeathPrincess]

Ive been in the market recently for some larger HDDs for some mass sorage.

Now by chance I saw the Hitachi XL3000 3TB drive. These are europe prices, but I have seen it sold for 100 GBP. Whereas the cheapest 3TB hitachi drives (7K3000) sell for 120.

Does anyone know if the drives contained in the XL3000 are any good? I was thinking of saving myself some money and buying 2 of them, breaking open the cases and mounting them as standard HDDs. Are these drives gimped in some way?

The promotional material states;

"Cheaper than the bare drive inside"

So are these infact 7k3000s? (with the 6g/s interface etc.)

 

[grambo]

It doesn't say the spindle speed anywhere in the specs (that I can find), so I'm guessing it's a 5K3000 (5400PM) 3TB? I bought two of those recently for storage purposes and they are fine, copying large files (4-15TB x264 encodes) I get 100-112mbyte/s, didn't bother benchmarking them.

 

[Ross1]

Yup, ive noticed the external 3TB hitachis seem to be cheaper than the internal 3TB hitachis on scan for the last few weeks.

My main issue is the warranty on the external is probably voided when you take it out the case.

 

[Aesma]

What's the warranty on these ? 115€ in Germany, quite interesting. I RMAed one Hitachi and one Seagate drives recently, so I don't remember for which I saw this as I wasn't concerned, but I saw that for external drives they said to remove them from the case and only send the bare drive, so I would guess opening them is not a problem. Might be even possible to put another drive in the enclosure, like an older slower one that is better suited to USB2.

 

[DeathPrincess]

It doesn't say the spindle speed anywhere in the specs (that I can find), so I'm guessing it's a 5K3000 (5400PM) 3TB? I bought two of those recently for storage purposes and they are fine, copying large files (4-15TB x264 encodes) I get 100-112mbyte/s, didn't bother benchmarking them.

I'm not sure about the speed either. With the slow speed reading off a USB drive, either would do.

In europe the 7200RPM drives are cheaper than the 5400RPM drives for whatever reason. TBH i'd prefer the 5400 as it's for bulk storage rather than speed, and 5400 should in theory last longer 112mb/s sustained reads would be fine for backups!

Yup, ive noticed the external 3TB hitachis seem to be cheaper than the internal 3TB hitachis on scan for the last few weeks.

My main issue is the warranty on the external is probably voided when you take it out the case.

The external has a 12 month warranty (which would probably be voided). Though I suppose I could always just slip the disk back inside the enclosure. The bare drive carries a 2 year warranty (for 17 gbp more). So maybe theres where the cost difference comes from. It would be 40 cheaper going the external route...

What's the warranty on these ? 115€ in Germany, quite interesting. I RMAed one Hitachi and one Seagate drives recently, so I don't remember for which I saw this as I wasn't concerned, but I saw that for external drives they said to remove them from the case and only send the bare drive, so I would guess opening them is not a problem. Might be even possible to put another drive in the enclosure, like an older slower one that is better suited to USB2.

12 months for the external drive. I'm guessing it would save on shipping, and that the disk would be where most issues would likely lie? It does look simple to open.

I didn't think of actually using the enclosures for anything! I have a pile of old, smaller HDDs just lying around not doing much right now, I might even just leave it as it is for a kind of "hot swap" kind of thing (could saw off the other end of 2 units and connect both of them via USB to 2 computers).

 

[Old Hippie]

I RMAed one Hitachi and one Seagate drives recently, so I don't remember for which I saw this as I wasn't concerned, but I saw that for external drives they said to remove them from the case and only send the bare drive, so I would guess opening them is not a problem

I have never seen a company request a consumer to remove a drive from a premade external drive for an RMA.

Please show a link for that.

My main issue is the warranty on the external is probably voided when you take it out the case.

I can't speak about other countries but this has always been standard operating procedure in the US. Removal of the drive will void the warranty.

Many times the drives included in premade externals are not exactly the same as the separate OEM drives but the fact still remains that your best bet is to purchase an OEM drive of your choice, purchase a decent external enclosure, and install the drive in the enclosure.

Now you have a drive that can be removed for RMA and a case that can have the drive removed for troubleshooting.

It may cost a little more up-front but if we're talking 3TB of data......how much is it worth to you to make it as safe as you can?

 

[rive22]

I've got a couple of the 3TB Hitachi Coolspins that I use for backup in Vantec Nexstar eSATA enclosures. Given they have one extra platter than my old 2TB WD20EADS yet they run 10C cooler at load I am pretty damn impressed. Half way through the drive still pumping around 100MBps. I thought about taking the 7200s out of the enclosures and using those as well, but I also figured I wanted 5400s for longevity, quiet, 3 year warranty, backup reasons.

Idle temps in mid 30's, but even in sealed enclosures with no fans they didn't get hotter than 46C after many hours of format then nearly filling them up with data.

 

[Old Hippie]

but even in sealed enclosures with no fans they didn't get hotter than 46C after many hours of format then nearly filling them up with data.

Nice temps!

I always buy external cases with active cooling but with those kinda temps it's not necessary.

 

[Krobar]

Rive22,


Thanks for the info; beginning to get really low on storage space now and just need the 5K3000 3TB prices to reduce in the UK.

Anyone using the 5K3000s in raid?