Any reason not to go for the Hitachi 1TB HDs?

ps3ud0 · 4 Jun 2007 at 23:40

Hi Guys,

Want to make a quick decision about a new HD and as far as I can see nothing should technically beat the new Hitachi 1Tbs. They have 200Mb platters which should mean high areal density and therefore high sustained read speeds. Hitachis are usually pretty good on access speeds so therefore I cant see how I can go wrong getting one (perhaps they are a bit more expensive £/Gb) and usually support all the new techs.

At the moment I already have a Raptor 74GB 8Mb and a WD 320Gb JD so I dont really need loads of HDs space, Id rather have another Raptor 150GB 16Mb but I cant see the point with these now on the market.

Any reliable website reviews or users experiences? Looking to pick one up by the end of the week...

ps3ud0 :cool:

PhillyDee · 5 Jun 2007 at 01:03

Do you really need that much storage space? And i think you are best off waiting for some reviews to see how these perform. Whats more important? Speed, temps, size, noise?

james.miller · 5 Jun 2007 at 01:08

the ridiculous price premium of the 1tb drives is enough not to get one.

PhillyDee said:
Do you really need that much storage space? And i think you are best off waiting for some reviews to see how these perform. Whats more important? Speed, temps, size, noise?

i seem to be eating storage up very quickly these days lol

drunkenmaster · 5 Jun 2007 at 01:57

there is no price premium on 1TB drives, well, a couple shops have increased price since release seemingly down to supply, but they were £200 on launch, which is 5gb/£1, which is fairly similar to most drives prices.

it doesn't really matter which he needs most, capacity, size, speed, heat the hitachi wins them all, also quietest i believe. anandtech reviews, there are two i believe normal + an update where it generally is within a couple percent performance above and below the raptor in all area's. if you wait a bit and supply increases prices should come down. or you could wait on stores to, shock horror, stop price gauging stuff and screwing us just because theres not a huge stock of them.

the other things hitachi do best is raid, ok less of a lead than in the past but for as many years as i can remember you've always got the best raid 0 performance out of ibm's/hitachi drives. no , if you want to spend £200 on a drive theres entirely no reason to get anything but a hitachi. solid state should be cheap and ultra fast right now but they are screwing around and they aren't.

but after all that pro hitachi, if you aren't really in need of so much space to be honest get a 200gb hitachi drive , for 99.9% of its usage you won't ever care about the speed differences of the lower end drives. as big as gaps can look on graphs in benchmarks in reality they are impossible to notice 99% of the time.

james.miller · 5 Jun 2007 at 06:37

drunkenmaster said:
there is no price premium on 1TB drives, well, a couple shops have increased price since release seemingly down to supply, but they were £200 on launch, which is 5gb/£1, which is fairly similar to most drives prices.

unless they are closer to £140, then yes there IS a premium on the drives because thats what 2x 500gb drives would cost you

joeconway · 6 Jun 2007 at 17:11

I would have said that the only reason not to go for one would be that if it were to fail then its a hell of a lot of data to lose and you would mayeb be better off with a couple of smaller drives

but thats just my opinion

leezer3 · 6 Jun 2007 at 17:22

joeconway said:
I would have said that the only reason not to go for one would be that if it were to fail then its a hell of a lot of data to lose and you would mayeb be better off with a couple of smaller drives

but thats just my opinion

The old myth. This gets trotted out every time a bigger capacity drive comes out.
Remember, statistically if any single drive has an equal chance of failing (Alright, not the case but good enough for this purpose), then with two drives, you're running double the risk of failure. Granted, you'll only loose half of your data, but its far more likely you'll loose one half than you would with the single drive.

-Leezer-

jbloggs · 6 Jun 2007 at 18:19

A couple of reviews can be found Here and Here

If you have the cash, go for it, but there is certainly a bit of a price premium on it, eg. 2 x 500GB WD AAKSs around £150 which would give comparable performance to the Hitachi 1TB, or a couple of 500GB Samsung Spinpoints - £140.

cavemanoc · 6 Jun 2007 at 18:24

jbloggs said:
2 x 500GB WD AAKSs around £150 which would give comparable performance to the Hitachi 1TB

A quick Raid 0 will give you more than comparable, you'll get considerably better performance out for the 2x500Gb for less money out of your onboard controller. Raid 0 for the win every time!

jbloggs · 6 Jun 2007 at 20:31

2 x 500GB WD AAKSs around £150 which would give comparable performance to the Hitachi 1TB

Maybe I should clarify what I mean, running 2 x 500 WD AAKSs in IDE mode (ie as individual HDDs), each HDD will give you comparable performance (Average read) to the 1TB Hitachi, and you will also have your 1TB of storage.

And ofcourse (as cavemanoc states) if you put them in RAID0 you will considerably increase the Average read value.

skanky · 6 Jun 2007 at 21:24

ps3ud0 said:
At the moment I already have a Raptor 74GB 8Mb and a WD 320Gb JD so I dont really need loads of HDs space, Id rather have another Raptor 150GB 16Mb but I cant see the point with these now on the market.

think you've answered your own question here, bolded the relevant bit.

Journey · 6 Jun 2007 at 21:27

Yeah.. you could buy like 3x 500 Gb Samsung HD501LJ Spinpoint T's for £200 inc. VAT and get 1500GB of drive space if thats all that is important, and they have great performance to boot, quiet too!

However since you are looking for speed then you should go either with the cheaer Raptor if you don't need the space or get the Hitachi if the extra room might come in handy. Maybe check out the Storagereview.com testing of the drive they rate it above the Raptor.

ps3ud0 · 6 Jun 2007 at 22:02

Cheers guys - youve given me some food for thought - still tempted by the 1Tb drive due to the new perpendicular storage and the fact it uses 200Gb per platter.

Ive done RAID 0 and to be honest Id rather minimise the amount of HDs I have (perhaps I could use these as a replacement to my raptor - thoughts?) to prevent heat/noise...

If I went RAID 0 what drives should I consider? Sadly I need the cliched performance with least noise/heat...

skanky said:
think you've answered your own question here, bolded the relevant bit.

Perhaps I wasnt too clear - Im not desperate for space at the moment but it makes sense to spend a bit more to make sure I dont need to upgrade too soon - to me perpendicular storage is the biggest tech change in HDs for years since the Raptor...

If you think of the reasons why people bought the Raptor and the reasons why people told you not to, the Hitachi has all the advantages and none of the disadvantages. Technically it ticks all boxes and just has a price premium at the moment as its in demand and king of the hill. Yep RAID 0 will always beat it, but that will happen in any arguement versus a single HDD...

ps3ud0 :cool:

ps3ud0 · 6 Jun 2007 at 22:15

drunkenmaster said:
it doesn't really matter which he needs most, capacity, size, speed, heat the hitachi wins them all, also quietest i believe. anandtech reviews, there are two i believe normal + an update where it generally is within a couple percent performance above and below the raptor in all area's. if you wait a bit and supply increases prices should come down. or you could wait on stores to, shock horror, stop price gauging stuff and screwing us just because theres not a huge stock of them.

the other things hitachi do best is raid, ok less of a lead than in the past but for as many years as i can remember you've always got the best raid 0 performance out of ibm's/hitachi drives. no , if you want to spend £200 on a drive theres entirely no reason to get anything but a hitachi. solid state should be cheap and ultra fast right now but they are screwing around and they aren't.

Ive done RAID 0 on 2 75GXPs so trust me Ive been at the 'clicking' edge

. Wish I had the money to get 2 x 1Tb drives...

jbloggs said:
A couple of reviews can be found Here and Here

If you have the cash, go for it, but there is certainly a bit of a price premium on it, eg. 2 x 500GB WD AAKSs around £150 which would give comparable performance to the Hitachi 1TB, or a couple of 500GB Samsung Spinpoints - £140.

Cheers Ill check out those reviews - not seen much about the drive really yet...

ps3ud0 :cool:

ps3ud0 · 7 Jun 2007 at 01:35

Grrrrrr think you guys have persuaded me to get at least 1 500GB drives - its a toss up between the WD AAKS or the Samsung HD501LJ - both 166GB platters and I guess similar performance...

Anything that sets those 2 apart? (soz would never consider Seagate or Maxtor)

ps3ud0 :cool: