How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

[acstech]

The title is the question. Have they improved from the Deathstar (deskstar) days?

Not that the WD drives I've been using have gone wrong in any way, but if there's something faster and just as reliable, I'll use that instead.

[gg1978]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

They've been alright for me, though I don't have many of them..

I've got a couple of used 120GXPs i picked up recently, a pair of 7K80's, a 90G 180GXP, a 120G 7K250, and a pair of 1TB 7K1000.B's, that i've picked up recently..

[KeriJane]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

Hello

Hitachi desktop hard drives have been doing great over here.

Only one failure and that was caused by a Fuhjyyu'd Antec with like 750mv + of Ripple.

You can't reasonably blame that on Hitachi.... getting Antec'd. It took out the motherboard too.

Hitachi has a nice Acoustic mode that can be adjusted to limit seek noise (at the expense of seek time).

Samsung and Hitachi have been the most trouble-free brands for me.

Good luck,
Keri

[everell]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

Antec'd????? What happened to Bestec'd??? Didn't think I would see the day!

[washu]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

The last big batch of computers (300+) we got in at work had about 40/40/20 split of Hitachi/Seagate/WD drives. So far the Hitachis have failed at about the same rate as the others. When the Hitachis go they usually seem to get bad sectors where the Seagates and WDs just die.

We also got a few laptops with Hitachis which are mostly fine. The ones back from the IBM changeover however are crap.

The one Hitachi I have at home is a 1 TB drive and so far it's been fine.

[acstech]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

Samsung and Hitachi have been the most trouble-free brands for me.

I find that a bit disconcerting, since I used Samsung before I switched to WD. Their 250GB P series and OEM drives always developed bad sectors. Every one of them. Even with Intel chipsets. Their 1TB F1 series drives would get the occasional bad sector, but worse, lock the computer until +5vsb was removed (PSU unplugged). That's the whole reason I switched to WD.

Samsung's T series drives have worked ok for me though, as did their PATA drives. I'm glad they work for you...

I don't see anyone screaming "no don't do it," with regard to Hitachi so I might try one out.

[ratdude747]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

i have had shit luck with ibm/hitachi notebook drives. years 99-02. old. but i see ones made by other out living them. i have left a 20gb ibm, 2 6gb ibm, and possibly a 20gb hitachi (needs to be re-tested). my maxtor one touch III 50gb still runs geat, other than the enclosure has seen some abuse.

i had a thicker ibm 6gb notebook drive go south and recently a 30gb one as well.

where can i find a bigger cheap pata lqaptop drive? say 15gb+?

[370forlife]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

Hello

Hitachi desktop hard drives have been doing great over here.

Only one failure and that was caused by a Fuhjyyu'd Antec with like 750mv + of Ripple.

You can't reasonably blame that on Hitachi.... getting Antec'd. It took out the motherboard too.

Hitachi has a nice Acoustic mode that can be adjusted to limit seek noise (at the expense of seek time).

Samsung and Hitachi have been the most trouble-free brands for me.

Good luck,
Keri

750mv of ripple! Wow! That is even worse than the Topower with bad secondary and primary viva caps on the JG basement roundup. That could even take out a cheap fan or two.

[crocodile2009]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

They run cold, fairly quicky and deadly quiet.

Only issues I have found with them is that they vibrate a lot more than other drives, so make sure it's screwed in well.

[KeriJane]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

750mv of ripple! Wow! That is even worse than the Topower with bad secondary and primary viva caps on the JG basement roundup. That could even take out a cheap fan or two.

Not to hijack the thread but I had an old H.E.C in here with apparently over a VOLT (1,000+mv) of Ripple. Smoke, too. Fuhjyyu, too.

I'm PRETTY SURE I was reading the scope right both times, but remember, I'm still learning! (both were done using a properly capped lead/PSU tester)

Back to Hitachi:

I'd rather have it grow some bad sectors than just quit. The WD's around here and the one Fuhjyyu'd Hitachi just died.
A Seagate 7200.11 grew bad sectors and now that I think really hard, I did have a Hitachi around 2004 or 2005 get some bad sectors. Oops. Didn't cause data loss though.


I also like the Caviar Black WD drives.... great so far.

Good Luck,
Keri

[bgavin]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

I've nothing but bad luck with Hitachi/IBM drives.
Only one instance comes to mind with an IBM Deskstar that lasted years longer than it should have.

All the dead laptop drives I see are Hitachi.

[Per Hansson]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

Hitachi desktop drives are great IMO, but I don't really have much against any of the makers
Once in a while they might release a dud, but that's just life and can happen to anyone...

But if I'd have to rate the HDD manufacturers I'd put Hitachi close to top spot, what sets it for me is performance / noise etc
I.e. a pick a drive that is suitable for what I need, I don't really care about the make...
You will need backups in any case so the reliability factor in the sum of things does not really matter IMO...

[NxB]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

When I was picking TB drives recently I settled on the Hitachi newegg special. It was the cheapest and had the least complaints of failure vs the other drives. It has not had any problems yet. Their laptop drives were hit or miss. Some ran for a long time, some got clicks of death.

[i4004]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

to resurrect this a bit

>The last big batch of computers (300+) we got in at work had about 40/40/20 split of Hitachi/Seagate/WD drives. So far the Hitachis have failed at about the same rate as the others.

what rate would that be, roughly?
10, 20, 30 per 100 drives?

[c_hegge]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

Samsung and Hitachi have been the most trouble-free brands for me.

Interesting you mention Samaung as being trouble free. For me, they are the most troublesome brand. Out of all the Samsumg drives I come across, about 60-70% either get bad sectors or just die after a few years.

I haven't had much experience with Hitachi lately. The little I have had suggests they're extremely unreliable. My boss sold a few and some only lasted about a month. The connectors are too loose as well and the one in his computer drops out every time the desk gets bumped

I prefer Seagate and WD as they have so far been OK. Sure, I've seen the odd one fail, but compared to samsung, the failure rates are low.

[i4004]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

that suggests you were not using 7200.11 seagate's, right?
<wink>

[washu]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

what rate would that be, roughly?
10, 20, 30 per 100 drives?

I don't have any "hard" numbers, as I haven't kept track that accurately. I'd say about 30 have gone in the 4 years we have had them, so about 10 per 100. About 10 went in the first couple weeks and the rest at random times after that. This is all in GX520s.

About 3 or 4 of the seagates in those 520s failed in an interesting way: They shorted the power connector. The power supply would turn on then immediately turn off again if those drives were connected. Hooking them up to a beefy 600 W supply caused the wires to start melting, so we stopped that fast.

We had a disastrous batch a few years before which were all Maxtor slimline drives. We just decommissioned the last of the 200 of those PCs (GX260s) after about 7 years in service. There was 1 Maxtor slimline left and it had bad sectors when we tried to DBAN it. So that's a 100% failure rate over 7 years.

The middle batch were the bad cap machines (GX270 and GX280s) but their drives were remarkably reliable, despite having the crappy clam-shell cases that overheated them. I'd guesstimate that less than 5 in 100 of those drives died. They were about 50/50 Seagate/WD.

The latest batch of PCs (replacing the GX260s) are a mix of HP DC5800s and Dell 360s. The HPs all have WD caviar blue and have had 2 out of 80 fail so far. The 360s all have seagates an so far none have gone, but they are about two months newer then the DC5800s.

[i4004]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

yeah, i was also bitten by slimline maxtors...

ok, thanks for reply.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

Hooking them up to a beefy 600 W supply caused the wires to start melting, so we stopped that fast.

No protection circuit on those PSUs?

[momaka]

Re: How are Hitachi HD's for reliability these days?

The connectors are too loose as well and the one in his computer drops out every time the desk gets bumped.

I don't know about the new ones, but the old (and problematic) Deskstars such as the 75GXP definitely had really crappy power connectors. I just fixed the power connector on my 307020 last week.
The pins in the power connector are really thin near the PCB, so everytime I plugged the drive in to the PSU, they would all bend and crumble near the PCB. A little bit of Super Glue fixed the problem (at least temporarily). I'm sure, though, that with enough connections/disconnections, the pins would just eventaully break off, given the crappy design.
But again, that's for the old Deskstars of the early 2000s. I haven't had any newer ones, but for my next computer build (which probably won't happen very soon), I might actually try one.