Hitachi 2TB Harddrive Owner's Thread

It is probably a nationwide sale, since it's also in the Sacramento 12/10 Fry's ad.

Oddly enough, my Fry's ad is slightly different than what war9200 linked, and shows the $99.99 price without any limit per customer.
 
Cyberbeing said:
It is probably a nationwide sale, since it's also in the Sacramento 12/10 Fry's ad.

Oddly enough, my Fry's ad is slightly different than what war9200 linked, and shows the $99.99 price without any limit per customer.
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probably a typo. The first person that buys more than 2 will throw up a red flag and they'll post a sign about it being an error by the newspaper and absolve themselves of responsibility. That is of course provided they actually set the limit to two in the computer system. If they did not do that, then you're golden.
 
Here in Sweden one is lucky to find them below $150 :eek:

Edit: just checked, $165+ at swedish e-tailers atm.
 
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It's not that bad really. Newegg just got them back in stock here and they're going for $130.
 
Cyberbeing said:
It is probably a nationwide sale, since it's also in the Sacramento 12/10 Fry's ad.

Oddly enough, my Fry's ad is slightly different than what war9200 linked, and shows the $99.99 price without any limit per customer.
Click to expand...
Thanks to whomever pointed out this sale. I just picked up four of them at the Dallas store. The checkout clerk didn't bat an eye, just rang them up. And the price sticker on them didn't mention any limit.
 
Ironically as the person who posted about the sale, I got totally blanked. :) I got there first thing Saturday morning in Austin and they were sold out. Fortunately I'm ~5TB away from running out of space on my current array, but still, annoying!
 
myrison said:
Ironically as the person who posted about the sale, I got totally blanked. :) I got there first thing Saturday morning in Austin and they were sold out. Fortunately I'm ~5TB away from running out of space on my current array, but still, annoying!
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I got a rain check. Worse case scenario, you can get them on amazon or microcenter for a bit less. frys.com still lists them as avaliable for shipping last i checked.
 
Frys $99.99 sale expanded to online orders too as of midnight. Apparently no quantity limit, just grabbed 8.
 
Dammit, I knew I should have held out a little longer.... :(

Ah well, should have the new array up by Thurs night :)
 
Foiled again! Not available for pickup in Dallas or Austin (though odditory's post got my hopes up again!) :)
 
Next time I see something I'll PM you, because about 10 minutes after I posted this morning they were sold out online - some lurker must've grabbed up a bunch.

Don't sweat it - I don't think we've seen the end of sales on these, the last week or two before the new year are good for sales. Last year I bought 20 of these drives from Frys on December 29.
 
Thanks odditory, I'm not in an enormous hurry, but I do hate letting a good deal slip by me. I'll nab a few the next time around. I definitely appreciate the PM if you see a deal.
 
Well they're only going to get cheaper, so the next bus is in 20 minutes.
 
It seems the just-released 3TB 7K3000 Retail Kit (0S03086) is going for around $210 (+/-$5) at all of the online stores which have it on order, which is a nice improvement over the current ~$250 price of the OEM drives, especially for a brand new product. Still pricey, but this gives hope for sub-$200 prices, sooner rather than later.

The 2TB 7K3000 & 5K3000 OEM drives are also beginning to appear for ~$140 (Some places have these drives mislabeled as 7K2000.B & 5K2000) and 1.5TB for ~$100. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the 3TB 5K3000 anywhere yet.

I wouldn't be surprised if the the 2TB 7K2000 becomes somewhat rare as soon as late January. If we're lucky, there may be one last 7K2000 sale before then, but for all we know, this current Fry's sale may be the last until the new models arrive.
 
Is 3TB the way to go?

Right now, probably not. Still too expensive to really be worth it IMO. Be patient and look out for sales over the next few months. They really need to drop within the $160-180 price range, before they become reasonably economical at today's 2TB prices.
 
I'm assuming mixing/matching the 7k3000 2TB drives in a RAID array with the 7k2000 2TB drives is a bad idea? If that is the case, and they really are going to stop putting out the 7k2000s, I'm going to have to go on a shopping spree.
 
war9200 said:
So the 3TB is the way to go..?
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I see you asking the same question in multiple threads. 3TB drives won't be cost competitive with 2TB drives for 7-12 months.

My rule is I don't buy new drives unless I'm doubling the capacity of what I'm replacing. This is mostly because I've tended to buy for raid arrays. Example 250GB -> 500GB -> 1TB -> 2TB -> 4TB. I skip "in between" size factors like 640GB, 750GB, 1.5TB, 3.0TB.
 
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myrison said:
I'm assuming mixing/matching the 7k3000 2TB drives in a RAID array with the 7k2000 2TB drives is a bad idea?
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Not necessarily, the 7K3000 2TB's will just negotiate down to 3G on a 6G capable controller. If there's any 2TB drive I would trust to mix in with an existing 2TB 7K2000 array, it would be the 7K3000's.
 
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If you really want to buy 3TB drives go ahead and do it.

Its not cost effective, but were not going to stop you!
 
odditory said:
Not necessarily, the 7K3000 2TB's will just negotiate down to 3G on a 6G capable controller. If there's any 2TB drive I would trust to mix in with an existing 2TB 7K2000 array, it would be the 7K3000's.
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Thanks for the comment odditory. Let us know once you have your first 50 and have paved the way for the rest of us to safely mix & match. :D
 
7K1000.C users, are you getting smooth HDTach graphs? I'm getting 7 or 8 dips to <100Mbyte/sec in my 4 disk raid 5 config.

I did manage to update to the 3MA firmware by relabelling the file to bdx and using JPDL_SP.exe from a bootable usb stick.
 
The Frys in austin jsut got some more in stock, I grabbed two and they are the new 7k3000 drives and say SATA 6gb/s on the drive. No outward changes at all to the box.

Just an FYI.
 
OmegaAvenger, did the box list the 64MB instead of 32MB cache? That should be a visible change on the 7K3000 retail boxes.

And what was the SKU/PN? 0S0_ _ _ _
 
No that's not a 5K3000. I'm guessing they went 32MB buffer on 2TB and 1.5TB models of 7K3000, and 64MB buffer on 3TB model.
 
odditory said:
I'm guessing they went 32MB buffer on 2TB and 1.5TB models of 7K3000, and 64MB buffer on 3TB model.
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I think somebody at Hitachi really screwed up badly... Either someone at the factory installed the wrong memory chip on the drive, or they were flashed with a bogus firmware which accidentally disabled half the cache. Everything points to the 1.5TB & 2TB drives having a 64MB buffer, from marketing material to multiple Japanese and English datasheets to their website and even the model numbers.

Hitachi Press Release said:
The new Hitachi Internal Hard Drive Kit comes in capacities of 3TB and 2TB, making them ideal for storing massive amounts of digital content. All drives ship with a 64MB buffer and a 6Gb/s SATA interface, providing quick access to data.
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The second to last number in Hitachi's model numbers specifies a Cache amount. A "4" means 64MB, a "3" means 32MB, a "6" means 16MB, and an "8" means 8MB. This is very consistent across Hitachi's entire line of HDDs and has never been wrong before.

HDS723020BLA642 <-Should have a 64MB cache

OmegaAvenger, if I were you, I would contact Hitachi support and get some answers. This seems like a recall waiting to happen...
 
Cyberbeing said:
I think somebody at Hitachi really screwed up badly... Either someone at the factory installed the wrong memory chip on the drive, or they were flashed with a bogus firmware which accidentally disabled half the cache. Everything points to the 1.5TB & 2TB drives having a 64MB buffer, from marketing material to multiple Japanese and English datasheets to their website and even the model numbers.



The second to last number in Hitachi's model numbers specifies a Cache amount. A "4" means 64MB, a "3" means 32MB, a "6" means 16MB, and an "8" means 8MB. This is very consistent across Hitachi's entire line of HDDs and has never been wrong before.

HDS723020BLA642 <-Should have a 64MB cache

OmegaAvenger, if I were you, I would contact Hitachi support and get some answers. This seems like a recall waiting to happen...
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I geuss I could, but Its not like I didn't get what I paid for. I got more than I paid for lol. I'll go ahead and do that when I have the chance. Also, the FW version is listed on the drive, anyone else have a 2tb 7k3000 drive to compare it?
 
The firmware listed does appear to be the same as those that were sold in Japan & China a few weeks ago. The only difference is this is a Dec 2010 batch while those were a Nov 2010 batch.

I'm only suggesting you call to make Hitachi to notify them of a potentially big problem which they may not be aware of yet. Since you are the only person on [H] with a drive in hand so far, you have the only proof available.

If they really did change the cache sizes at the very last minute, they at the very least need to issue a correction to their press release, data sheets, and website. They may even need to go further and change the model number on future versions from HDS723020BLA642 to HDS723020BLA632 so it's accurate. If they didn't purposefully change the cache sizes, then they have a production issue which may result in a recall... It's possible that 32MB vs 64MB cache really might not be that big of deal performance wise, but Hitachi still has some clean-up work cut out for them to fix the current situation either way.

When you have a chance, load up Hitachi Feature Tool to confirm the drive really does only have 32MB of cache, and this isn't just a HDTune bug.
 
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Cyberbeing said:
The firmware listed does appear to be the same as those that were sold in Japan & China a few weeks ago. The only difference is this is a Dec 2010 batch while those were a Nov 2010 batch.

I'm only suggesting you call to make Hitachi to notify them of a potentially big problem which they may not be aware of yet. Since you are the only person on [H] with a drive in hand so far, you have the only proof available.

If they really did change the cache sizes at the very last minute, they at the very least need to issue a correction to their press release, data sheets, and website. They may even need to go further and change the model number on future versions from HDS723020BLA642 to HDS723020BLA632 so it's accurate. If they didn't purposefully change the cache sizes, then they have a production issue which may result in a recall... It's possible that 32MB vs 64MB cache really might not be that big of deal performance wise, but Hitachi still has some clean-up work cut out for them to fix the current situation either way.

When you have a chance, load up Hitachi Feature Tool to confirm the drive really does only have 32MB of cache, and this isn't just a HDTune bug.
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Is there a way to load that from a flash drive? My server's ODD isn't connected atm and its a PITA to crack it open.
 
I have an original Hitachi 2tb deskstar and recently my boot times to get to windows has gone up around 2 minutes. I was unable to explain it, but today I dis-connected the 2tb Deskstar and one other drive and my boot time went back to seconds. If it is the Hitachi, what can I do to fix it? Thanks.
 
Here (http://www.xfastest.com/viewthread.php?tid=55145) are some benchmarks comparing the following:

Controllers:
Dell Perc 5/i SAS Raid Card
ICH9-R

Drives:
Hitachi 7K3000 2TB
Hitachi 7K1000.C 1TB
Hitachi 7K1000.B 640GB
Hitachi 7K1000 750GB

Software used:
Atto
HD Tune
HD Tach
PCMark05
PCMarkVantage

A small appetizer:


Closest thing to a review of the 7K3000 2TB (HDS723020BLA642) I've found so far...
Anyone else found anything interesting about this drive or the 5k3000 series?
 
Regarding my last post, it is in fact the Hitachi drive. I removed it and now my pc boots up like lightning. Should I re-install windows, or is there something else I can try? There's over 1.5tb of data on there and I have no room to back it up elsewhere, unless I order a new drive to clone it to.
 
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