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Hitachi Deskstar® 7K250 (HDS722525VLAT80) 250 GB ATA-100 Hard Drive
Price Range:
$32.00 to $78.12
Hitachi DeskStar 250GB 7.2K RPM 8MB Buffer 3.5 Inches Form Factor ATA-IDE Hard Drive. New Retail Factory Sealed With Full Manufacturer Warranty.
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1 Review from Epinions.com
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Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 (250 GB)
This Hitachi DeskStar drive should not be confused with IBM DeskStar predecessors that were very unreliable (DeathStars). Hitachi turned the DeskStar technology into inexpensive and highly reliable drives.
RELIABILITY
I have a few of these drives used for backups and they are very good. Never gave me any problems and never lost any data. As most Hitachi drives, they score high on the reliability surveys (77 percentile), although not as high as the Hitachi GXP 180 or Seagate 7200.7, that are the best IDE drives in the terms of reliability. The reliability scores are good and better than the newer Hitachi drives (I have no idea why). I have heard rumors that the IT companies used these drive in high quantities for massive data storage due to a combination of low cost, good performance, and high reliability circa 2005. I think this is true as one can purchase lots of these drives used on ebay cheaply from commercial vendors who retire these drives after a few years of use. I looked into it more and looks like Capricorn used them for the Internet Archive project. Similarly, it has been leaked that based on their studies, Google chose to use Hitachi in their servers.
MY TESTS
As I said, the performance is good with average media read rate of over 50 MB/s. It actually tested faster that the much newer WD SATA drive I have (in media transfer rate, IDE is obviously slower that SATA in burst speed). Burst speed is over 91 MB/s, almost maxing out the IDE interface (100 MB/s). The seak time is good at 13 ms, and CPU utilization is much lower than average for my various drives. All testing was done by HD Tech. The working temps are good and in my tests they would run at 36-37C in a well ventilated case, only slightly higher compared to my cool Seagate drive (reviewed separately).
MY EXPERIENCE
I test the drives by fire (I have 3 of these) when I do backups of my PCs. They work for hrs of writing of hundreds of GB (in USB enclosures) with the temps not exceeding 110F, which is OK. They are moderate quiet; probably not quiet enough for a media PC.
Highly recommended for use where reliability is highly desirable, i.e. backups.
Solid, dependable drive with decent capacity
| Author's Rating: |
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Pros: Well rounded performer with good reliability
Cons: Slightly noisy (but not bad)
The Bottom Line:
Good dependable drive, especially for backups in external enclosures.
This Hitachi DeskStar drive should not be confused with IBM DeskStar predecessors that were very unreliable (DeathStars). Hitachi turned the DeskStar technology into inexpensive and highly reliable drives.
RELIABILITY
I have a few of these drives used for backups and they are very good. Never gave me any problems and never lost any data. As most Hitachi drives, they score high on the reliability surveys (77 percentile), although not as high as the Hitachi GXP 180 or Seagate 7200.7, that are the best IDE drives in the terms of reliability. The reliability scores are good and better than the newer Hitachi drives (I have no idea why). I have heard rumors that the IT companies used these drive in high quantities for massive data storage due to a combination of low cost, good performance, and high reliability circa 2005. I think this is true as one can purchase lots of these drives used on ebay cheaply from commercial vendors who retire these drives after a few years of use. I looked into it more and looks like Capricorn used them for the Internet Archive project. Similarly, it has been leaked that based on their studies, Google chose to use Hitachi in their servers.
MY TESTS
As I said, the performance is good with average media read rate of over 50 MB/s. It actually tested faster that the much newer WD SATA drive I have (in media transfer rate, IDE is obviously slower that SATA in burst speed). Burst speed is over 91 MB/s, almost maxing out the IDE interface (100 MB/s). The seak time is good at 13 ms, and CPU utilization is much lower than average for my various drives. All testing was done by HD Tech. The working temps are good and in my tests they would run at 36-37C in a well ventilated case, only slightly higher compared to my cool Seagate drive (reviewed separately).
MY EXPERIENCE
I test the drives by fire (I have 3 of these) when I do backups of my PCs. They work for hrs of writing of hundreds of GB (in USB enclosures) with the temps not exceeding 110F, which is OK. They are moderate quiet; probably not quiet enough for a media PC.
Highly recommended for use where reliability is highly desirable, i.e. backups.
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