I just received this drive and finally got it installed about a week ago. So far, everything seems to be going fine, but you never really know if a product is going to hold up, especially if it's going to make it to warranty. But, I've had good luck with HGST drives over the past few years.
The main reason I'm writing the review deals with the amount of time it took for me to mount the drive correctly. I inherited an XPS8300 that I'm using as an extra machine, so I installed an SSD for the OS and then installed this for storage. The XPS8300 is from around late 2010, I think, so most folks with newer systems won't have the same problem I had with it.
I have Windows 7 on this machine, and it only recognized this drive as 2TB. I did some reading and found that you have to initialize this drive under disk management, and you also have to make sure the drive is is set with the GPT format, not the MBR format. But, even though I checked on that, it still was showing only 2TB's after initializing and formatting the drive. I scoured the web for a couple of hours before I accidentally stumbled over something that looked like it might help me. I found a single post talking about downloading the latest ACHI drivers from Intel, and I tried it out. Once I did that, the drive showed up instantly as a 4TB drive. (something like 3.77 actual TB's).
I'm not a noob at this kind of stuff. I've built my own custom computer from scratch that has 8 hard drives, and I've been messing around with computers and components for quite some time. However, I am not an absolute tech genius either. It would be nice if manufacturer's would spend a little more time with their instructions and provide a few tips for things to try if the product doesn't work properly. For instance, it might be helpful to mention that older systems may need to update ACHI drivers, etc. They're assuming only professionals are using these kinds of products while a lot of us enthusiasts are buying these products too. It wouldn't hurt to include key bits of information to folks like me.
Moral of the story is your system needs to be 64 bit, the drive needs to be in GUID (GPT) format, and if you've got a system that's got a little age, make sure that the newest ACHI drivers from Intel for your specific processor are installed. This might save you a few hours from trying to figure out why it's not showing the correct amount of space.
Now, let's just hope it makes it at least through the warranty period.
| Hard Drive | 4 TB |
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