Customer Reviews

Hitachi Deskstar 3.5" 1TB 7200RPM SATA II 16MB Cache Internal Hard Drive 0S00163

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

This drive was quite loud when I installed it, but that was because AAM was turned off and the value was locked at the loudest setting. Once I changed it to the quiet setting with the Hitachi Feature Tool, it worked much quieter.

Pros:

- This is a very fast drive. I got transfer rate of 135MB/s at the outer edge of the disk, dropping off to around 65MB/s at the inner tracks
- Very quiet once the AAM is enabled and set to the quiet value
- It is a 2-platter design, which is more energy efficient and theoretically less prone to head crashes
- Retail packaging means you are not taking a chance of whether a bare drive will be packaged properly, and a cable is included as well.

Cons:

- It is fairly loud out of the box with AAM turned off. It is a low-pitch rumbling instead of clicks when seeking
- Does not come with backup/imaging software in the box like similar Seagate/Western digital retail drives.

I purchased these drives directly from Amazon at the $69 price, not from other online affiliates like Tiger.

I have purchased three of these drives and several other Hitachi models over the years. I have had zero issues with them - no bad sectors, no drive failures! All very positive.

As the technology evolves, platter density increases and consumer installations become more prevalent, there will be higher reports of issues. It is simply a statistical fact. I have experienced issues with both Western Digital and Seagate drives although both companies did replace the units with no questions asked. But I can honestly say that even from from the days of IBM involvement with Hitachi, I have never had a problem with this brand of drives. I own models going back as far as 2002 (20GB) that have never had even a bad sector.

I am sorry to read the previous bad review here on Amazon but drives do fail and it can be very traumatic to lose valuable data. It just has not been my experience with these drives. Of 61 current reviews on the "Egg" for the same drive, 95% are positive (50 five star, 8 four star and 1 three star).

Perhaps I have just been lucky! Hitachi has earned my loyalty.

BTW, the "Egg" sells these for $20 to $30 more depending on the day. Amazon lately has had the best prices on all computer accessories including Apple products.

14 months ago, I purchased an Iomega 1TB external hard-drive, even though many, many reviewers suggested a higher than average failure rate for external drives. In 30 yrs. I had never had a hard-drive crash on me, so I thought they might be over-reacting or just unlucky. Low and behold, exactly 364 days after I bought it - 1 day before the warranty ended - it crashed. Big time.
So now I've purchased an internal 1TB Hitachi drive. It's a typical hard-drive, fast and quiet, very large capacity.
The primary reason for my doing this review is to agree with 100's of reviewers who have been noting the unbelievably inadequate PACKAGING that Amazon is now doing as a matter of course. I'm not talking about the 'hassle-free' or the 'green' packaging, I'm talking about throwing a sensitive piece of equipment into a huge box and not adding the packing material needed so the customer will receive an UNDAMAGED product. I did order the drive, but I ordered the RETAIL version instead of the OEM bulk drive. Doing that meant the drive would be packed in a shock-resistant shipping box and hopefully arrive in usable shape. It did. That was early Jan. and everything's OK so far.
I just don't understand their poor choice in regard to packaging. What do you think?

This is NOT the item pictured! I am very disappointed with what I received. The picture clearly shows a boxed item with SATA cable and I received an OEM HDD only. Very misleading on the part of Amazon!!!!

I've running four of these Hitachi 1TB drives in a RAID 5 array, I've had zero problems so far. I only considered Hitachi or Samsung 1TB drives since Western Digital and Seagate cripple their consumer drives for RAID compatibility, google "TLER RAID" for more info. The Hitachi drives I received were the newer 7K1000.C models meaning the drive are made up of two 500GB platters and use less power than the B models. For hard drives, fewer platter means less chance of hardware failure. It's also faster compared to a 1TB made up of three 333GB platters.

I have this drive. But it was not purchased through Tiger Direct, so this review does not address that vendor.

I might have given this drive five stars, but since I have had it installed for less than 24 hours, I cannot rate the long term reliability of the drive.

Pro:
Retail box with 18" sata cable and mounting screws included. Also booklet with instructions for those who need it.

Good size drive for the money I gave for it. Good performance.

Con:
The drive became rather noisy during the end of the format. I thought it might have been defective. Runs quiet now. Looks like I was nervous with out good cause.

I did NOT get the retail product described. This is OEM (albeit mine had the same internal shock packaging as the retail package) but it does NOT come with cable, screws, or instructions. No idea if the warranty is equivalent, either. OEM products often have no or short warranties, whereas retail on this has 3 years.

It's not even the same model as described, so if you're ordering it as an exact duplicate replacement for a RAID setup it may or may not work with a 0S00163 drive. The drive I got was 0F10383 which in fact has a good spec and 32Mb cache, but that's not the point if you need an exact replacement.

It might turn out to be a great drive, for all I know, but it gets a 1 star for a deceptive description by Amazon.

I purchased this drive from Amazon at a great price considering the 1 terabyte size. So far it has proven to be reliable and quick. While it seems that many prefer the better known drive makers they are missing out on a great drive when they don't assess this one. I have purchased Deskstars since they were an IBM company and they have been the most reliable drives I could ask for.
This particular item comes with the SATA cable which is convenient, took only about 5 minutes to install and the only part that was time consuming was a full format which is advised for any new drive. The capacity is right for me at this point in time but I am already keeping an eye out for the new 2TB drive at a good price. Speed is not an issue since it is the new 2 platter design and has higher data density than the old models. I notice some have mentioned the noise of the drive. The only noise is the heads and only noticeable with the case open and it is doing multiple seeks. Once I put the cover back in place I no longer notice it and it has been on 24/7 since I installed it.
In all you can find faster drives if you need a drive for servers but for me it is a single user machine and there is no reason to spend a lot of extra money for an increase in performance so slight you might never notice it. I am thrilled with Hitachi and am glad Amazon is such a competitive vendor of their products.
***
This is a September update of this drive bought in February 2010. It remains a solid performer running 24/7 all this time. It is especially strong on random writing and neck and neck on reading with a new Samsung I bought. It is within 2 megs/second of the F3 which is supposedly the fasted desktop drive available. I had to do a test to see which was faster. You will not know the difference in real life use. I already know the durability of Deskstars but only bought the Samsung to see what happens. In all this is the drive I will be recommending for some time to come. It is solid and fast.

The box came without the manual in the first place so I have no idea about the warranty, and I don't live in the US so basically I'm stock with a dead drive.

It was working fine for about 22 days, then started to show I/O errors when writing, they started about 2 per week, then 3 per day.

SMART says the drive will fail within 24 hours and backup my stuff.

Wouldn't recommend it to anyone, also another Hitachi drive of 160GB SATA with some 3+ years started to fail too.

I'm off Hitachi from now on.

I was expecting a retail hard drive like what it shows on the picture. However, I got an OEM drive with no retail box, no SATA cable, no manual, nothing. Although the drive works pretty well, I still consider Amazon doing a bad job presenting its items. I've already install my stuffs so I am not returning it. Just to warn everyone that there is a chance that you will get an OEM drive.