Hitachi 2TB Harddrive Owner's Thread

I know I haven't been on here for a while.

Just wanted to add I received 2 badly packed drives from Newegg delivered by UPS. Wrapped in a single layer of bubble wrap sitting at the bottom stacked on top of each other. The bubble wrap was flat on the bottom.

One booted with the click of death, I'm not wasting my time with the other.

I read all of the warnings in this thread and they were Open Box so I shouldn't of chanced it.
But they were selling for a good price.

The drives:
2x HITACHI Deskstar 7K3000 HDS723020BLA642
 
odditory said:
Here's the settings you want to use with Hitachi 2Tb's and an Areca 1680 series. I am familiar with the timeout issue when setting the array to spindown, brought it up to Areca, no dice. They said it wasn't an enterprise class drive and thus Hitachi won't cooperate with troubleshooting issues with a raid card. Whether or not that's true about Hitachi who knows, that was Areca's speculation.

Then I discovered that using the "Low RPM Mode" timeout instead of "Time to spin down HDD" achieves relative equivalence, the drive doesn't spin and it goes in more of a true sleep mode. No more timeouts when waking up the array.

power.jpg
Click to expand...

Odditory were you able to test settings for the newer model 5K3000 drives? Were you able to determine settings that work?
 
Hi,
I have just purchased a drive from our local compter shop here in Oz.( for a friend at work)
i have noticed the firmware is different:

i currently have 8x hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632 (2TB) with firmware 580

The manufacture date of this drive is MAY-2011 firmware 5C0

Does anyone know the difference?

Will this affect my raid 5 having one firmware different to the other drives?

Thanks

Regs John
 
Anyone know what revision TigerDirect is currently shipping? They are on sale for $70 now.
I bought 5 from Newegg last month they were revision 580. Then I bought 1 from Amazon and it was revision 180.

Seeing this drives anal retentive people like me insane:
i8Yuy.jpg
 
zeroARMY said:
Anyone know what revision TigerDirect is currently shipping? They are on sale for $70 now.
I bought 5 from Newegg last month they were revision 580. Then I bought 1 from Amazon and it was revision 180.

Seeing this drives anal retentive people like me insane:
i8Yuy.jpg
Click to expand...

It's possible to update the firmware on these drives using the windows application Hitachi HiTest or with the other utility if you can get it.
 
How long did it take for Hitachi to respond back for you guys? It's been over a week since I've tried to get the firmware and utility for my 5k3000 drives. The drive on the A180 firmware keeps dropping from the array. I'm troubleshooting the backplane, but wanted to get all my drives on the same firmware to rule that out.
 
vabch22 said:
How long did it take for Hitachi to respond back for you guys? It's been over a week since I've tried to get the firmware and utility for my 5k3000 drives. The drive on the A180 firmware keeps dropping from the array. I'm troubleshooting the backplane, but wanted to get all my drives on the same firmware to rule that out.
Click to expand...

Is this the 2TB or 3TB drive. I may be able to help you by pm.
 
I have not had luck with the 5k3000 drives recently. I picked up 2 at the Newegg sale with rebate back in July. One drive worked fine and the other was physically broken. The SATA port was cracked and a piece of the plastic was loose in the bag.

Newegg sent me a replacement which had the click of death and none of my PCs could detect the drive. The replacement for that then was detected but dropped out during formatting and upon reboot had the click of death. My fourth one worked and I was just happy to have one working that I added it to my WHS V1.

It is now two days later and I am getting delayed write failures along with causing my AOC-SASLP-MV8 to drop out. I knew I should have run the disk tools, but I was just happy 2 months later to finally have a drive that worked.

Tomorrow I plan to pull the drive to test because it is possible my card doesn't like the new firmware. I know the SASLP can be sensitive to Green drives since I had problems in the past with Samsung drives doing the same thing yet they work fine in my Window 7 PC.
 
It sounds more like Newegg's drive shipping methods that you're having the real problem with, by now everyone and their mother knows Newegg's notorious for how they pack and ship drives. Which is why I always pay a little extra just to get the retail boxed versions of Hitachi drives from B&M stores or Amazon -- then I know they've been suspended in plastic clamshell brackets all the way from the factory.

You're mixing too many variables at once so I'd try to isolate and deal with one problem at a time. First attach the drives to plain SATA ports and run some surface scans with "Error Scan" in HDTune or use Hitachi DFT tool, then separately test the controller card and make sure windows driver is latest.

I'm not aware of the SASLP-MV8 being sensitive to green drives, it might just be you have a faulty controller. In any case the 5K3000 isn't the likely culprit if your controller is dropping. I've tested 5K3000's on dozens of different controllers.
 
odditory said:
It sounds more like Newegg's drive shipping methods that you're having the real problem with, by now everyone and their mother knows Newegg's notorious for how they pack and ship drives. ...
Click to expand...
I've received very good packaging of hard drives (15+ shipments) from Newegg's NJ (Edison) warehouse. Until a few months ago, drives were individually wrapped/taped in good bubble wrap, and then placed in a right-sized corrugated box. Box(es) were then put in the shipping box with either peanuts or crumpled paper. Recently, they have used a pair of plastic suspension end-pieces in individual right-sized corrugated boxes. My only gripe is that they don't take the extra seconds to cover/surround the inner box with the packing material. The inner box is usually resting on top.

When people have complaints about Newegg (and Amazon) hard drive shipping, it would be constructive to identify the location of the warehouse that packed it. Thank you.

-- UhClem
 
Has anyone with multiple drives compared the benchmark results of their drives? I've got 3 of the 5K3000 models and the max transfer rate of the fastest drive is ~144 MB/sec, while the slowest is ~127 MB/sec. Average transfer rates are also lower at 109 MB/sec vs. 97 MB/sec. I used tools such as HDTune and HDTach to get reliable results.

This is consistent and repeatable. Swapping cables/sata connectors between drives make no difference so it's definitely the drives themselves. I figure some of them must have slower motors that spin the drives slightly below the expected 5900 rpm. Externally, the drives appear exactly the same (same PCB) and have same firmware.

I just wonder if the slower drives will have reduced long term reliability.

I know at least one other person has gotten similar results, as seen here:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1036882963&postcount=13
 
Has anyone obtained the 5C0 firmware for the 0F12115 2Tb 7K3000 drive yet? If so, I would muchly appreciate receiving a copy of it.

I have two drives with the 580 firmware (Dec 2010) and one with 5C0 (Aug 2011) in a RAID 5 array and I'd like to bring the two older ones up to the new level.

Thanks!
Tom
 
wizziwig said:
Has anyone with multiple drives compared the benchmark results of their drives? I've got 3 of the 5K3000 models and the max transfer rate of the fastest drive is ~144 MB/sec, while the slowest is ~127 MB/sec. Average transfer rates are also lower at 109 MB/sec vs. 97 MB/sec. I used tools such as HDTune and HDTach to get reliable results.

This is consistent and repeatable. Swapping cables/sata connectors between drives make no difference so it's definitely the drives themselves. I figure some of them must have slower motors that spin the drives slightly below the expected 5900 rpm. ...

I just wonder if the slower drives will have reduced long term reliability.
Click to expand...
All drives (of the same model/FW/color/etc) are not created equal. It is not unusual to find a performance variance of 10-15%.

Although your conclusion seems logical enough, this variation is (effectively) never due to deviations (from spec) of the rotational speed. Note that the RPM reported by most programs is just the value returned from an Identify Device ATA command. However, a couple of the more sophisticated analysis programs actually measure the RPMs. I don't recall which ones. [When I encountered a similar conundrum to yours, I ended up hacking up some code to disprove (and "move past") the RPM theory.]

Whether the "slow-poke" will be less reliable depends on which, of several, operational factors are responsible for the underperformance. One thing is indisputable--if you use it in a striped array, the entire array will be slowed.

In my experience, among consumer-class desktop drives, Samsung is much worse than Hitachi. Seagate (and probably WD) aren't immune either.

When we buy a Chevy (consumer-class), we shouldn't expect to be driving a Benz (enterprise-class).

-- UhClem
 
TomT said:
Has anyone obtained the 5C0 firmware for the 0F12115 2Tb 7K3000 drive yet? If so, I would muchly appreciate receiving a copy of it.

I have two drives with the 580 firmware (Dec 2010) and one with 5C0 (Aug 2011) in a RAID 5 array and I'd like to bring the two older ones up to the new level.

Thanks!
Tom
Click to expand...

Tom (and all the guys out there):

Is it safe to flash the firmware while the drive is in service? Or do you need to boot with some kind of standalong "live CD?"
 
Sorry if this has been covered, trying to search from a phone browser.... Does model HDS723020BLA642 support pin 11 activity in SGPIO backplanes?
 
Anyone know when the 7K4000 drives are likely to be released?

It looked like they were going to be released soon, but then the floods hit and I haven't seen much since about them.
 
vr. said:
Sorry if this has been covered, trying to search from a phone browser.... Does model HDS723020BLA642 support pin 11 activity in SGPIO backplanes?
Click to expand...

Found my own answer... yes, duh, don't look at activity lights during array initialization, they stay solid on. Idiot! :D
 
Hello friends!

I am interested in upgrading my system's HDDs and 2x Hitachi Deskstar 7k3000 2TB is quite possible the way to go for use as boot drive as well as storage drive. What is your opinion about the everyday use of this HD?

I have also made a little research abouth the 64 MB cache not shown correctly in programms like Crystal Disk or HDtune.

I found the following german thread (I can speak german) where this issue is described.

http://extreme.pcgameshardware.de/l...richtig-erkannt.html?daysprune=-1#post3106264

The guy who had the problem says to have contacted Hitachi support. They officialy informed him that "no utility at the moment can display the right cache size". They probably meant that this is only for Hitachi Drives, since a WD caviar black user says that the HD utilities see the whole 64 MB of cache of his HD correctly.

Does anybody own the Deskstar 7k3000 2TB, SATA III, 64 bit cache HD and manages to see the whole 64 bit cache via HD smart utility?

EDIT: I also found an english speaking thread about this issue (first feedback). The guy says the same story as the german one above. Hitachi is unable to give an answer and sys no utility can verify the Deskstar cache correctly.

http://www.shoplinkz.com/p/Hitachi-HDS723020BLA642-0F12115-Deskstar-7K3000-2TB-3-5-Inch-Interna
 
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I have an older Hitachi with the original shipping firmware that needed to be flashed. IT's a 7k1000.C 1TB HDT721010SLA360 drive.

I have tried to flash it with HiTest but it doesn't seem to work IE it can't see the drive. The system is an AHCI P67-B3 board. I really don't want to boot into windows in IDE mode...

It seems to have microcode 31b from this device string.

Hitachi_HDT721010SLA360_________________ST6OA31B

I also read somewhere that I need to upate the firmware/microcode in sequence of release. It's my understanding the first lease is 31B, the second 39C, the third 3EA and the bloody final version 3MA.

I also understand that these DBX files are specific to the capacity of the drive.

Also that there are two versions of the DOS flashing utility I can't seem to find that are specific to the size of the drive.

What a ROYAL PITA it is to flash a Hitachi drive...

ugg

HELP!

PS I tried flashing it from dos using JPDL_SP.exe but again even with BIOS in IDE mode it can't see the dam drive! argh!!!
 
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My stupidity it's a .B model...

It's the one on the shelf on the RIGHT dummy... not the drive on the left!
 
I am looking at putting 4 HDS723020BLA642 (Hitachi Deskstar 3.5" 2TB 7200RPM SATA III 32MB Cache Internal Hard Drive 0S02861) of these on a Dell H700 6gb RAID card. Any one else done that?

Probably order from Amazon since I have Prime. :)
 
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WDC has purchased Hitachi, and are going to be replaced with wdc models so you will see that they will completely disappear over the next few months.
 
mwroobel said:
WDC has purchased Hitachi, and are going to be replaced with wdc models so you will see that they will completely disappear over the next few months.
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Does that mean that there will be WDC versions of Deskstar drives?
 
mwroobel said:
WDC has purchased Hitachi, and are going to be replaced with wdc models so you will see that they will completely disappear over the next few months.
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What are you talking about? Hitachi just announced and is releasing the 7K4000 series very soon. Are you saying that will be cancelled and or rebranded as WD drives?
 
The 7K4000 4TB are already shipping. It remains to be seen whether WDC will offer a 5K3000 drive replacement (In 2TB or 3TB) under the HGST name and with its favorable firmware for prosumer arrays, or transition the deskstar line to WDC branding equivalents and firmware (which is looking more likely than not).
 
Sgt_Strider said:
What are you talking about? Hitachi just announced and is releasing the 7K4000 series very soon. Are you saying that will be cancelled and or rebranded as WD drives?
Click to expand...

5K3000 drives have all but disappeared from the distribution channel with no replacement or successor being offered. WDC may allow 7K4000 to proceed, but it seems that the cheaper coolspin variant has been discontinued.
 
mwroobel said:
The 7K4000 4TB are already shipping. It remains to be seen whether WDC will offer a 5K3000 drive replacement (In 2TB or 3TB) under the HGST name and with its favorable firmware for prosumer arrays, or transition the deskstar line to WDC branding equivalents and firmware (which is looking more likely than not).
Click to expand...

You can also bet that even though WDC is allowing 7K4000 series to proceed, they sure won't allow HGST products to undercut their own green/blue/black series drives in price.

I imagine the course of events over the next 12 months proceeds as follows. Hitachi 7K4000 drives are released into channel at significantly higher prices (than equivalent WDC drives). HGST drives fail to sell in similar volume as WDC drives. WDC uses poor sales numbers to further reduce HGST production or hasten elimination of HGST products altogether.
 
1010 said:
You can also bet that even though WDC is allowing 7K4000 series to proceed, they sure won't allow HGST products to undercut their own green/blue/black series drives in price.

I imagine the course of events over the next 12 months proceeds as follows. Hitachi 7K4000 drives are released into channel at significantly higher prices (than equivalent WDC drives). HGST drives fail to sell in similar volume as WDC drives. WDC uses poor sales numbers to further reduce HGST production or hasten elimination of HGST products altogether.
Click to expand...

Actually, here is the word from our WDC nee HGST rep: 7k4000 deskstar and ultrastar 4TB drives will continue to sell through without enddate. 5K3000 2TB and 3TB drives are eol. 5K1000 eol 9.1.2012. At eol 1, 2 & 3TB coolspin HGST are replaced with their equivalent WDC Green drive.
 
mwroobel said:
Actually, here is the word from our WDC nee HGST rep: 7k4000 deskstar and ultrastar 4TB drives will continue to sell through without enddate. 5K3000 2TB and 3TB drives are eol. 5K1000 eol 9.1.2012. At eol 1, 2 & 3TB coolspin HGST are replaced with their equivalent WDC Green drive.
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I'm going to be hopping mad if I get shipped a WDC green drive on a 5K3000 RMA
 
If you did unfortunately you would have no recourse. In the warranty leaglese they guarantee you a drive of at least the same size and of similar function. No tler is not something you can point to and say it is different, especially because it was not a stated feature of the drive (and even if it were it would be a tough fight). We do a lot of RMA's. I would say with drive RMAs 70% of the time we get the same model back, 20% we get a "functional equivalent" model and 10% we get a better model.
 
mwroobel said:
If you did unfortunately you would have no recourse. In the warranty leaglese they guarantee you a drive of at least the same size and of similar function. No tler is not something you can point to and say it is different, especially because it was not a stated feature of the drive (and even if it were it would be a tough fight). We do a lot of RMA's. I would say with drive RMAs 70% of the time we get the same model back, 20% we get a "functional equivalent" model and 10% we get a better model.
Click to expand...

I've gone through similar recourse with Seagate years ago when Seagate actually listed RAID compatibility as a feature of the 7200.10 series drives (when that functionality was clearly not present in their firmware for those models). Managed to get an entire array upgraded to ES. Unfortunately, I think you're right, even though Hitachi support and warranty divisions are aware of Hitachi products being RAID compatible, I can't recall it actually be listed in any product literature.
 
Well, you run into other problems there. What does RAID compatibility mean? R0, R1, R6? If they want to be humps about it, depending on vendor only enterprise drives (or RaidEdition drives) are guaranteed for array use. And even worse, there are some drives which are technically only advertised to be used 8 hours a day, and if you return a drive to them that has more power on time than that they will refuse to replace it.
 
mwroobel said:
Well, you run into other problems there. What does RAID compatibility mean? R0, R1, R6? If they want to be humps about it, depending on vendor only enterprise drives (or RaidEdition drives) are guaranteed for array use. And even worse, there are some drives which are technically only advertised to be used 8 hours a day, and if you return a drive to them that has more power on time than that they will refuse to replace it.
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Coolspin drives are listed as intended for low duty cycle, but there is no actual hrs/day uptime figure that I am aware of beyond that.

As far as arguing semantics, the easiest method of proving RAID compatibility is through physical testing with a particular controller and test environment. Again as you mentioned, I'd expect deflection and additional arguments by the manufacturer trying to disprove or discredit claims, which would make RMA replacement difficult.
 
1010 said:
Also it seems that Seagate still lists Baracuda desktop drives for RAID use both on their website and data sheet (despite this actually being accurate)

http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/barracuda/
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Yes, but you have to read between the lines. "Desktop RAID". That is generally R0 & R1 (as Seagate Defines It). Most of the people buying the 5k3000s are buying if for R5, R6, ZFS etc which falls into "Enterprise RAID". In the end, Seagate has more lawyers than you do unfortunately.
 
1010 said:
Coolspin drives are listed as intended for low duty cycle, but there is no actual hrs/day uptime figure that I am aware of beyond that.

As far as arguing semantics, the easiest method of proving RAID compatibility is through physical testing with a particular controller and test environment. Again as you mentioned, I'd expect deflection and additional arguments by the manufacturer trying to disprove or discredit claims, which would make RMA replacement difficult.
Click to expand...

Exactly. But if you look at the Qualified Vendor and Device listings for the major RAID HBA manufacturers, there are very few non-enterprise drives on their approved list. Complain to the drive manufacturer that it didn't work with HBA xyz, their first question will be was that drive certified FIRST by the HBA manufacturer for that drive, and THEN by that drive manufacturer for that HBA. This is why if you want to have guaranteed end to end compatibility, you buy HP servers with HP drives, or Dell servers with Dell drives (or whatever Server Vendor with tier approved drive). Yeah, it can cost a lot more but you get a guarantee of compatibility.
 
mwroobel said:
Exactly. But if you look at the Qualified Vendor and Device listings for the major RAID HBA manufacturers, there are very few non-enterprise drives on their approved list. Complain to the drive manufacturer that it didn't work with HBA xyz, their first question will be was that drive certified FIRST by the HBA manufacturer for that drive, and THEN by that drive manufacturer for that HBA. This is why if you want to have guaranteed end to end compatibility, you buy HP servers with HP drives, or Dell servers with Dell drives (or whatever Server Vendor with tier approved drive). Yeah, it can cost a lot more but you get a guarantee of compatibility.
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HBA's are listed for compatibility in this document, but the only test run is to see if the drive is recognized and they don't specifically state that RAID tests were performed.

http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/EA3C2532A751C279882577DF0059E290/$file/Deskstar_7K3000_CompatGuide_final.pdf

There's also this document which advocates using HBA for drives greater than 2TB, but no specific vendors or drives are listed

http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/D213A024C090CE9F862577D5002600FC/$file/FinalHiCap_2.2TB_TechBrief.pdf
 
mwroobel said:
Yes, but you have to read between the lines. "Desktop RAID". That is generally R0 & R1 (as Seagate Defines It). Most of the people buying the 5k3000s are buying if for R5, R6, ZFS etc which falls into "Enterprise RAID". In the end, Seagate has more lawyers than you do unfortunately.
Click to expand...

Even by that definition, RAID 1 runs on mirrored operation. I got into this argument with a Seagate RMA years ago during escalation of my ticket. If one device "times out" randomly either at specific intervals or randomly (not attributed to device failure) the array must rebuild, putting the array at risk. So the argument is relatively the same for RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 6 operations because ultimately the drive itself is not aware of what RAID level is being used (since the controller handles that). All the drive should report is ERC timeout. A device that is listed for RAID use should timeout under 7 seconds unless it is operating outside of normal design parameters or it is failing.
 
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