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Hitachi 2TB Harddrive Owner's Thread
- Thread starter odditory
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They are $69 online also http://www.frys.com/product/6554753?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
Reminder: FRYS > AMAZON > NEWEGG for sourcing Hitachi drives, reason being at Fry's you get the retail box version which has superior packaging of the drive - suspended with the plastic clamshell brackets which is superior to the hitachi OEM package from Amazon (cardboard) or the infamous Newegg repackaging of individual OEM drives removed from a factory 20-pack.
The +tax you pay at Fry's is well worth it for this reason alone.
The +tax you pay at Fry's is well worth it for this reason alone.
Yes, I think it seems to be. The trouble then is sourcing 4 drives from different factory runs. (Though I'm not sure how essential this is. Some people swear by it, other's call it FUD)
And again, I've been told the 5k3000s are superior to the WD Green 2TBs because they haven't been stripped of their "RAID Support" - can anyone elaborate on this, please? I know the new WDs are stripped of the TLER support in firmware - do the Hitachis still have this? I read in this thread from 5 months ago that Hitachi removed AAM from the drives through a firmware update - is this still the case?
Thanks for the feedback.
I bought the Hitachi 2tb drive (HDS5C3020ALA632) about three days ago and noticed a strange issue. Instead of showing 32mb of buffer memory, it's showing 26mb 
Anyone else have this? To be exact it's 26756608bytes via HDtune and 26130kb via Hitachi's DFT.
I did an error scan with HDtune and a quick test with DFT and everything seems fine, and transferred over 700gb from my old drive (before i noticed the buffer size) and no problems at all, in fact i was happy with my purchase, however that 26mb instead of 32mb is worrying me as i'm wondering if it could cause bigger problems like data loss in the future.
I asked Hitachi, at first they dismissed HDtune results as it's 3rd party software, which is fine, but then when i sent the photo of DFT stating the buffer memory as 26130kb the guy said it might be a fault and recommended i should get it replaced via the retailer or an RMA.
CrystalDiskInfo also shows the lower buffer memory (albeit 26129).
I have two other hard drives Samsung 1tb HD103SJ and 1.5tb HD154UI and they both work flawlessly and display the accurate buffer memory; i thought i'd give the Deskstar a chance after so many years (yes, i too was a victim of the Deathstar, i know it was a long time ago). The other thing that's different from the 2 x Samsung drives is that they're Sata/300 and the Hitachi is Sata/600, but i don't think that would cause issues with displaying the correct buffer memory?
My motherboard is Asus P7P55D, Intel i5 750, Windows Pro XP SP3.
Some other tests that i did:
Anyone else have this? To be exact it's 26756608bytes via HDtune and 26130kb via Hitachi's DFT.I did an error scan with HDtune and a quick test with DFT and everything seems fine, and transferred over 700gb from my old drive (before i noticed the buffer size) and no problems at all, in fact i was happy with my purchase, however that 26mb instead of 32mb is worrying me as i'm wondering if it could cause bigger problems like data loss in the future.
I asked Hitachi, at first they dismissed HDtune results as it's 3rd party software, which is fine, but then when i sent the photo of DFT stating the buffer memory as 26130kb the guy said it might be a fault and recommended i should get it replaced via the retailer or an RMA.
CrystalDiskInfo also shows the lower buffer memory (albeit 26129).
I have two other hard drives Samsung 1tb HD103SJ and 1.5tb HD154UI and they both work flawlessly and display the accurate buffer memory; i thought i'd give the Deskstar a chance after so many years (yes, i too was a victim of the Deathstar, i know it was a long time ago). The other thing that's different from the 2 x Samsung drives is that they're Sata/300 and the Hitachi is Sata/600, but i don't think that would cause issues with displaying the correct buffer memory?
My motherboard is Asus P7P55D, Intel i5 750, Windows Pro XP SP3.
Some other tests that i did:
OmegaAvenger
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You aren't alone. I see that on my coolspin drives, but they work fine for what i'm using them for so to me its not a big deal. I suspect the firmware may be using the rest of the buffer for something else.
LMK if Hitachi tells you anything else.
LMK if Hitachi tells you anything else.
i touched on this in my reply in this tread
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1607091&page=2
TLER (or hitachi's version CCTL) is not an option that is changable on the 5k3000 drives. not a big deal for software RAID and not a problem with a decent hardware controller. i think most H forum members who use these drive would agree, these drives don't pose a problem when used in RAID arrays, at least compared to other drives (WD, Segate et al) that produce low rpm/green drives.
Then these are worse than the WD Greens? If they don't have CCTL and AAM, make more heat, use more energy, and have a far worse RMA process then I don't see what the benefit is.
And thanks for the link back to the other thread. I hadn't noticed there was a reply!
And thanks for the link back to the other thread. I hadn't noticed there was a reply!
if you are specifically looking for these features (AAM & TLER /CCTL) then you can ignore all the 5xxx rpm / green drives from all the disk manufactures. you'll just have to shell out the extra cash for enterprise / RAID edition HDs.
however i think you're missing the advantages the hitachi/samsung drives (in the cheaper green drive segment) have over WD & Seagate drives;
1. drive(s) do not spin down
2. drive(s) do not park heads
3. drive(s) use 512k blocks (at least for the 2TB drives, think the 3TB use 4K)
all of which are important to RAID arrays. the WD/Seagate are either missing one or all of the above.
i don't have info on the RMA process on hitachi drives as i've never had to return a drive (yet).
overall, no ones says you can't use any of cheap WD/Seagate HDs in a array, people do but there seems to be higher occurance of incidence with said drives with people that do. that's why people (including myself) on a budget or wince at at dropping cash on expensive 7200rpm drives (you can purchase 2 samsung F4's or 2 hitachi 5k3000 2TB HDs for the price of 1 WD 2TB RE HD).
the RAID acronym does after all stand for 'Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks'. before someone comments, the 'I' can also mean 'Independant' tho 'Inexpensive' was the original term. twice the price for half the storage seems to be a rip-off to me.
Just an FYI. I tried to order 10 of these last night and Fry's canceled the order stating the item is in "limited quantities" even though I do not see that on the site.
OmegaAvenger
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I think its limit 2 per customer in store.
Gotta use cash or a different credit card each time too. Their POS system will track it.
Most of the time you can carry 4 or 6 to the cashier. Smile a lot and if the super isn't watching too close they'll just ring them as separate sales.
No, their POS does not do anything like this (take this from someone who has actually worked there and knows the ins and outs of their operations). The maximum that you can buy in a single transaction is twice the quantity limit (which will need to be approved by a supervisor/manager, but that is seldom a problem).
Cyberbeing
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If you bring in your local ad which doesn't show any purchase limit (mine doesn't), that would probably help too, if you needed to convince a supervisor.
I have 10 2TB hitachi drives from newegg (5 7k3000's 5 5k3000's) - one was DOA, but I think that was because the shipping department was using it as a doorstop/hockey puck. To be fair I sent the pictures to newegg and they immediately overnighted me a new drive and emailed me a calltag for the old one at no charge, which is all I could have asked for (well, given that I got a bum drive in the first place)
Otherwise no problems/dead sectors, etc. all anecdotal of course though..
http://www.behardware.com/articles/788-6/components-returns-rates.html
BeHardware, in their return rates stats for this year have Hitachi at the lowest. More useful would be some that broke down the drives by models though.
My 5K3000 has different PCB color. I wonder if there is any difference.
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It turns out you're 100% right about the firmware using the rest of the buffer memory. A user on another forum noticed it mentioned in the small print so got the full data sheet and found that it was actually used by the firmware. Pity Hitachi tech support don't know about the changes they themselves make
Here's the excellent post if anyone else gets worried about the 26mb buffer memory; it's not a fault like Hitachi tech support seem to think, it's actually the hard drives design:
Out of curiosity, does anyone know of other hard drive brands that use the buffer memory for the firmware? Seems strange to me, especially as i always assumed buffer memory was temporary volatile memory like RAM and also other drives always show the buffer memory they state they have; maybe that's the reason (amongst others), why Hitachi are able to sell these drives for less as they don't have additional memory modules for the firmware storage? Either way, not an issue any more, just happy it's normal as i'm very happy with the drive; especially with how quiet it is compared to my Samsung HD154UI which i'm going to sell off even though it's only a few months old.hg144 said:
OmegaAvenger
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It turns out you're 100% right about the firmware using the rest of the buffer memory. A user on another forum noticed it mentioned in the small print so got the full data sheet and found that it was actually used by the firmware. Pity Hitachi tech support don't know about the changes they themselves make
Here's the excellent post if anyone else gets worried about the 26mb buffer memory; it's not a fault like Hitachi tech support seem to think, it's actually the hard drives design:Out of curiosity, does anyone know of other hard drive brands that use the buffer memory for the firmware? Seems strange to me, especially as i always assumed buffer memory was temporary volatile memory like RAM and also other drives always show the buffer memory they state they have; maybe that's the reason (amongst others), why Hitachi are able to sell these drives for less as they don't have additional memory modules for the firmware storage? Either way, not an issue any more, just happy it's normal as i'm very happy with the drive; especially with how quiet it is compared to my Samsung HD154UI which i'm going to sell off even though it's only a few months old.
I bet they load the firmware into ram. much like a router.
How come they do that? Is it because it can run faster from ram rather than the other memory modules they have on the drive?
OmegaAvenger
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yes
Does it feel hotter? I don't trust the sensors in these things. I have several Samsung drives that consitently report temps well below room temperature. Inside a PC case. While operating.
Gauging temperature by feel is a terribly inaccurate way of checking. At the very least, use an infrared thermometer
Gauging temperature by feel is a terribly inaccurate way of checking. At the very least, use an infrared thermometer
If they are both connected and running at the same time, you can pretty easily tell which one is warmer by touch, even if you can't accurately tell what it's temperature is. Accuracy isn't important if you're just trying to confirm that drive "a", which theoretically should be warmer, is actually cooler than drive "b".
I just purchased two of the 5K3000 2TB drives during the recent newegg sale. They were packed in brown cardboard boxes, suspended with plastic shells holding them on each end. They both appear to be working fine so far, but I'd like to make extra, super sure before I put them into service. I've run the Hitachi drive fitness test, and with the long tests and they seem to pass. Are CrystalDiskInfo and HDTune the next step? As an aside, they shipped with firmware 580, which seems to be the latest version from what I can tell, so I haven't used the drive utility yet, but are there any other testing options it would provide?
OmegaAvenger
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Has anyone had to rma these drives to hitachi? Just curious how it went.
I just had my WHS box claim two are bad, one failed an HD tune error scan, and the other is being tested now. For the record they are both 7k2000s
also, are the hitachi retail boxes with the black inserts good enough to ship to them?
I just had my WHS box claim two are bad, one failed an HD tune error scan, and the other is being tested now. For the record they are both 7k2000s
also, are the hitachi retail boxes with the black inserts good enough to ship to them?
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rma is pretty much like any other brand. they take about a week or so depends on your location too.
the retail package is good enough to ship. replacement drive returns in similar packaging (2 black drive carriers holding the drive in box).
Does anyone have a link or source for the JKDL_SP firmware update tool? I first emailed Hitachi 6 weeks ago about a problem I have with my 7K2000 drives taking DAYS to defragment (when all other drives in my server defragment at normal speeds). After much back and forth with them, they determined I needed a firmware update, and finally sent me 3MA firmware and the HiTest software. But that software does not recognize my drives: neither the ones on my MB ports, nor the ones on my AOC-SASLP-MV8. In fact, it doesn't see ANY drives on my server, and sometimes just scanning for drives gives me a BSOD. I asked them if they had a DOS tool, and they said they would check. That was two weeks ago, and Adrian Cutler @ Hitachi has been ignoring my emails ever since.
Similar experience here when attempting to use Hitachi HiTest to update Hitachi 5K3000 2TB drives (P/N: 0F12117). I installed Hitachi HiTest, HiTest complained about a missing ASPI layer (NT/XP didn't come with an ASPI layer installed). I used ForceASPI to install an ASPI layer. Installing the ASPI layer stopped the ASPI errors, but HiTest still wouldn't recognize any drives connected to an Intel ICH10R southbridge (X58 platform). I also experienced random system lock-ups when attempting to scan for devices.
The bios and Windows XP had no issues detecting drives, so it's definitely an issue with HiTest. I can't believe Hitachi won't support a DOS utility going forward. You can't troubleshoot their HiTest windows application when it leaves no log and completely locks up the OS.
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OmegaAvenger
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I used the old dos based program from hitachi to test my drives. I never saw hitest on their site. I doubt [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_SCSI_Programming_Interface"]Advanced SCSI Programming Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg" class="image"><img alt="Text document with red question mark.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg/40px-Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/a/a4/Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg/40px-Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg.png[/ame] would help though.
OmegaAvenger, I wasn't referring to Hitachi's diagnostic utility. Hitachi offered two programs capable of updating the firmware on 7K2000 series drives (one was a DOS utility JKDL_SP.exe, the other was a windows based application called Hitachi HiTest).
On the 7K3000 and 5K3000 series drives, Hitachi no longer offers a DOS utility (they may have a DOS tool for these new drives, but they sure aren't acknowledging it publicly). If you request a firmware update you receive the firmware with the windows based application Hitachi HiTest. From my experience HiTest is very unstable, and has been nothing but a huge headache. It only seems to recognize drives on a select few chipsets. Only Hitachi knows what chipsets are supported by HiTest and they don't offer any documentation which lists the supported chipsets,
OmegaAvenger
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