Hitachi 2TB Harddrive Owner's Thread

Blue Fox said:
I haven't seen them in stock anywhere in a while. I imagine Hitachi cut off shipments with the new models coming out.
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Yeah I noticed the same, and I guess it makes sense for them not to continue manufacturing two different models of 2TB drives that are practically identical except for the newer one having things like a SATA-III interface. A B&M store having both versions side-by-side on a shelf wouldn't make much sense and lead to confusion.
 
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I have read this entire thread, having bought WD RE3 1TB's 1-2 years ago (16x1TB) and not having a single failure, I was quite happy with my purchase. However, at the time they were around $179/pc.

The WD RE4 disks are going anywhere from $250-300/pc while this drive retails between $100-$120. I know I probably would not have any problems with the WD RE4's but since they cost 2-3x I am not sure its worth it..

Has anyone here worked with both WD RE4 2TB and the Hitachi 2TB and can post some statistics between both types of disks on various raid controllers?
 
war9200 said:
[...]
Has anyone here worked with both WD RE4 2TB and the Hitachi 2TB and can post some statistics between both types of disks on various raid controllers?
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Haven't used them myself but read a lot of reviews and they are basically the highest performing 7200rpm SATA drives. The Caviar black and RE4 are basically identical in performance.. but I wouldn't risk running the caviars in raid because of lack of TLER and I have had problems with other WD drives dropping out of arrays easily in the past..
 
OldSchool said:
Did you guys buy all of these up or what? ;)

I seriously just checked all over and they are all out of stock, I hope they are planning a sale for black Friday or something :(
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If you can source cheap Hitachi simpledrive 2TB externals (LS2000US) they have the regular 7200 rpm drives inside. Warranty check on the serials all show 3 years. Can even reuse the external housings for other 3.5" drives if you wish.
 
xnoodle said:
If you can source cheap Hitachi simpledrive 2TB externals (LS2000US) they have the regular 7200 rpm drives inside. Warranty check on the serials all show 3 years. Can even reuse the external housings for other 3.5" drives if you wish.
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Hmmm that's not a terrible idea... I found those online for $109 w/ free shipping. So these are guaranteed to have the 7K2000s in them? Where does one come across this information? And the only warranty issue would be that it would have to be shipped back inside of the enclosure? Warranty isn't voided by removing them?

*EDIT*

I just did some digging and came across this:

http://www.storagereview.com/hitachi_simpledrive_rev_3_2_0tb_usb_external_hard_drive_review

According to the review:

"Attempting to disassemble the SimpleDrive’s case was an exercise in futility; this drive appears to be permanently sealed. We consider this to be one of the SimpleDrive’s cons; while opening the drive voids the warranty, the case could still be useful should the internal drive fail after the warranty period expires."

Ahh well, was worth a try...
 
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I bought three of them myself when sellout.woot.com sold them for $100 each.

To disassemble them, you need to slide the base plastic outwards, and then just unscrew/take apart the rest. Hard part is sliding the plastic base out, but it's doable. Even if you scuff the plastic, that's just aesthetics.

Tested a Seagate 1.5TB drive in it, and it mounts fine.

2TB drive + usb2.0 enclosure for $100 and change for me. My experiment went well.
 
Cyberbeing said:
Hitachi should have never given you HiTest in the first place, considering it's a readily available public download from Hitachi and not the correct tool for the job.

They should have given you the following files:

JKDL_SP.exe (Jupiter-K ATA/SATA Microcode Update Program)

JK0NB3EA.BDX (3EA firmware)


The DOS update utility is very simple, and you shouldn't have any problems as long as you use a non-RAID IDE-compatible SATA port.

Unlike HiTest, JKDL_SP does appear to be an internal Hitachi tool, which I believe requires escalation of your request and approval before being given out. Your standard support rep probably doesn't even have access to it normally, but the same goes for firmware files, so who knows what happened in your case.
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I had no luck flashing firmware file JP0NB3MA.BD with JKDL_SP.exe, even after I changed the file's .BD extension to .BDX, but HiTest worked fine.

Does firmware 3MA fix the performance problems of 3EA and 39C? IOmark results
 
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^ You had no luck flashing that firmware file to what model drive? I ask because you posted a link to the old Xbitlabs article that was talking about the 1TB Hitachi, not the 2TB. The two models have totally different performance characteristics so firmware 3EA on the 1TB has nothing to do with 3EA on the 2TB, meaning any issues of previous-rev firmware for a particular model weren't necessarily applicable to all models.

Also, where did you get the .BD file? If it was from hitachi, did they tell you to rename it? There are four or five different versions of a firmware file for a given rev, and the correct one depends on the drive's part #. So if they sent the wrong one then simply renaming its extension isn't doing much.
 
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odditory said:
^ You had no luck flashing that firmware file to what model drive? I ask because you posted a link to the old Xbitlabs article that was talking about the 1TB Hitachi, not the 2TB. The two models have totally different performance characteristics so firmware 3EA on the 1TB has nothing to do with 3EA on the 2TB, meaning any issues of previous-rev firmware for a particular model weren't necessarily applicable to all models.

Also, where did you get the .BD file? If it was from hitachi, did they tell you to rename it? There are four or five different versions of a firmware file for a given rev, and the correct one depends on the drive's part #. So if they sent the wrong one then simply renaming its extension isn't doing much.
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Hitachi e-mailed the .BD file and the HiTest ver. 2.305 diagnostic/flasher, and I used it on my 1TB 7K1000.C drive. That software and firmware 3MA can be found at HDDguru.com. Earlier, I downloaded from JPDL_SP.exe and versions 39C and 3EA of the firmware from that site. Apparently JPDL_SP.exe is made for 1TB 7K1000.C drives, while JKDL_SP.exe is for 2TB 7K2000.C drives. I didn't ask Hitachi about any of the flashing software because they didn't seem to know anything. It took over two months to get HiTest and the 3MA firmware from Hitachi because the only person authorized to release it is a screw-up.
 
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Interesting. I'm having the same finding with Hitach support when it comes to firmware files - its like pulling teeth, and that's assuming they reply at all. I'm still trying to get the 3MA firmware for the HDS7220ALA330. It's hard to tell if they are understaffed/incompetent or just intentionally dragging their feet with the fear that people brick drives using the wrong files or tools.

On the bright side at least the RMA process goes fairly smoothly when a drive goes bad and you need a replacement.
 
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That download link isn't the right file for the 2TB model, HDS722020ALA330. Maybe you didn't read my earlier post, but these files are not interchangeable between models. The 2TB model requires a different firmware file for 3MA, specific to the part# (example 0F10311) .

I'm beginning to understand better why Hitachi doesn't make these firmware files freely available on their website -- too much potential for confusion and error and RMA's.
 
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Yeah the 7K3000 is nice, and I'll be buying them eventually, but at $249 they aren't going to be competitive in terms of cost-per-gigabyte for at least 6 months, not with the relatively new Samsung 2TB's going for $80 right now, and the Hitachi 7K2000 occasionally dipping down to $90.

Same old story when a new flagship model comes out with a higher cost per gig than predecessors, just have to wait it out.
 
odditory said:
Yeah the 7K3000 is nice, and I'll be buying them eventually, but at $249 they aren't going to be competitive in terms of cost-per-gigabyte for at least 6 months, not with the relatively new Samsung 2TB's going for $80 right now, and the Hitachi 7K2000 occasionally dipping down to $90.

Same old story when a new flagship model comes out with a higher cost per gig than predecessors, just have to wait it out.
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Hi Odditory,


Do you think my chances are good with 3 1.5TB 7K3000 on an ARC-1212?

I need 3TB+ of best performance from only 3 drive bays (Could push to 4 drive bays if I remove the floppy drive so 1TB drives also a possiblity) Edit: Apparently the 7K3000 is "only" 600gb platters, I guess the marketing department decided the drive capacities??
 
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Krobar said:
Hi Odditory,


Do you think my chances are good with 3 1.5TB 7K3000 on an ARC-1212?

I need 3TB+ of best performance from only 3 drive bays (Could push to 4 drive bays if I remove the floppy drive so 1TB drives also a possiblity) Edit: Apparently the 7K3000 is "only" 600gb platters, I guess the marketing department decided the drive capacities??
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Some of that space is used for ECC data, and what-not. But yeah, a 1.8TB HDD would be the odd man out, though with what WD is doing with those 808.88GB drives, it wouldn't be anything new
 
OmegaAvenger said:
Some of that space is used for ECC data, and what-not. But yeah, a 1.8TB HDD would be the odd man out, though with what WD is doing with those 808.88GB drives, it wouldn't be anything new
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I would have thought a 2.25TB drive on 750GB platters could be rather good, its very close to the 2.2Tbyte limit once formatted so would be an ideal drive to allow for max boot without wastage.
 
odditory, make the 7K2000s go on sale already! I'm going to try some 5900rpm Seagates out in ZFS performance, but native 512-byte drives are the most pain-free solution ;)
 
Krobar said:
I would have thought a 2.25TB drive on 750GB platters could be rather good, its very close to the 2.2Tbyte limit once formatted so would be an ideal drive to allow for max boot without wastage.
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They also keep a bit of the drive left over in case sectors fail. So 2.1TB might be a better number.
 
It turns out the the new 7K3000/5K3000 HDDs use "up to 667GB/platter".



The "up to" makes me think they are using different platter sizes for the 1.5TB/2TB/3TB drives instead of short-stroking.

500GB platters x3 = 1.5TB
667GB platters x3 = 2TB
600GB platters x5 = 3TB
 
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Good catch, I think you're right. They're definitely using 5 platters for the 3TB version, evidenced by the fact they haven't moved to 4k sectors on this gen of drives and have stuck with 512. The difference of course is with the denser platters (like 4 x 750GB on the WD 3TB), the more powerful ECC afforded by 4k sectors becomes a requirement due to the increased noise.

Its probably time the 7K3000 gen has its own thread.
 
Some more stats regarding the 7K3000


http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-BiggerIsBetter.html

How come there are no reviews on any major sites?
The drive is already in the stores so a NDA should be out of the question, right?

Cyberbeing said:
500GB platters x3 = 1.5TB
667GB platters x3 = 2TB
600GB platters x5 = 3TB
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This would make the 2TB version even faster than the 3TB one. :eek:

I agree with odditory, a new thread for the 7K3000 generation is better... this will be my final 7K3000 post in this thread...
 
I e-mailed Hitachi they said 2011 first half of the year for the US.
I also e-mailed some retailers in the US, they have no ETA yet.
I want them to be released too, 35-45TB array would be nice =)
 
Anyone know of any sales going on for the 2 TB Hitachis? I've been searching around and haven't found anything. Seems like it's about time for a price decrease on these puppies and I could use a few more.
 
Maybe you haven't been following this thread. The 7K2000's are discontinued by Hitachi and thus the lack of sale pricing on them anywhere. Once the newer 7K3000 model 2TB's become available in a few weeks then you might see sales on the 7K2000's. Until then resellers will sell them at full price because they can.
 
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GMcDonnell said:
Anyone know of any sales going on for the 2 TB Hitachis? I've been searching around and haven't found anything. Seems like it's about time for a price decrease on these puppies and I could use a few more.
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I ordered 5 for 120 a piece from Microcenter today :(

I was in the same boat, I had been waiting until black Friday/Monday to see if anything came along but unfortunately it didn't. I started to get a bit worried when the sites I was tracking them on started to list them as unavailable from the manufacturer so I jumped...
 
war9200 said:
I e-mailed Hitachi they said 2011 first half of the year for the US.
I also e-mailed some retailers in the US, they have no ETA yet.
I want them to be released too, 35-45TB array would be nice =)
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The 3TB has been availble here in the UK for nearly a fortnight. My brother getting a couple of them in raid 1 for Christmas.
 
2 x 3TB in Raid1 = $450-$500 for 3TB of usable space, well let's just say its gonna be 9-12 months before it makes sense to buy these from a cost/GB perspective.

I do plan on getting some of the 2TB 7200RPM and 5400RPM 7K3000's though.
 
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poloser said:
RAID or RAID-Z rebuild times on 3TB drives make me sad.
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My 2TB drives actually rebuild quicker than my 1TB drives so I don't think disk size is the only factor when it comes to rebuild times.

I imagine it's largely due to my 2TB drives being faster per drive so if the 3TB drives are faster it could end up rebuilding the same or maybe even faster.
 
odditory said:
2 x 3TB in Raid1 = $450-$500 for 3TB of usable space, well let's just say its gonna be 9-12 months before it makes sense to buy these from a cost/GB perspective.

I do plan on getting some of the 2TB 7200RPM and 5400RPM 7K3000's though.
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Thats right, in this case my brother is very short on case space.
 
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