Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000: Terabyte Storage arrives on the Desktop
by Gary Key on March 19, 2007 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Quick Take
Our limited experiences to date with the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 have been terrific and beyond expectations. The overall performance of this drive has been phenomenal and is close enough to the WD1500ADFD Raptor drive that we consider it a worthy adversary. The Raptors are still the drives to own for benchmarking but this drive is a better overall performance value. In fact, based upon subjective testing we could seriously consider tossing this drive into the same performance sector as the WD Raptor when utilized in the typical gaming or enthusiast level machine where this drive will likely find a home.
We found the overall write performance and sustained transfer rates to be excellent and class leading in several of our test results to date. The drive even has the best overall thermal and acoustic characteristics of the high performance 7200rpm drives and absolutely blows away the Raptors in this respect. Of course, the 7K1000 does not have to contend with 10,000 rpm spindle speeds and firmware that is generally designed to extract the greatest amount of performance from the drive. However, considering the drive has a five platter design we think Hitachi has done a wonderful job in controlling thermals.
Hitachi's implementation of their Automatic Acoustic Management technology on the 7K1000 does not hinder performance in a noticeable manner and offers a significant advantage for those needing a spacious drive in a silent system. We cannot wait to test the CinemaStar version of this drive that will be designed with DVR operations in mind but for now our HTPC test bed has found a new drive. As stated in the article, we believe leaving AAM and NCQ turned on provides the best performance experience with this drive. While there may be a very slight performance advantage in certain benchmarks with AAM off (NCQ also), we feel like the benefits of having a near silent 1TB drive in our system is well worth the price of losing a few benchmark points.
The Deskstar 7K1000 is not without faults. We did find in our Nero Recode tests and to some degree in our Winstone tests that the drive does not perform as well as expected in handling large block sizes of data in sequential order. The Achilles heel of the Seagate 750GB drive was its inability to handle large files in non-sequential order. Hitachi has overcome this for this most part with a large 32 MB cache and from all apparent indications firmware that is tuned with operational balance in mind or even favoring non-sequential read/writes. A luxury it can afford due to its cache size and areal density advantages over the other drives in our test group.
Overall, we think Hitachi's Deskstar 7K1000 is the best 7200rpm drive we have tested to date. This is quite the accomplishment considering this is Hitachi's first 3.5-inch form factor drive that utilizes perpendicular recording technology. We still have significant testing left to complete on this drive that includes our full IPEAK and Application test suite with AAM and NCQ turned off or on along with RAID testing but we do not expect to find any surprises at this time. With an expected retail price of $399 or $0.40 per-Gigabyte this makes the 7K1000 a true value considering its size and performance. For these reasons, we highly recommend the purchase of this drive if you are currently looking for a high-capacity drive with performance to match.
We would like to thank Dell once again for providing our test samples and encourage you to visit StudioDell or take a look at the systems currently shipping with this impressive drive.
Our limited experiences to date with the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 have been terrific and beyond expectations. The overall performance of this drive has been phenomenal and is close enough to the WD1500ADFD Raptor drive that we consider it a worthy adversary. The Raptors are still the drives to own for benchmarking but this drive is a better overall performance value. In fact, based upon subjective testing we could seriously consider tossing this drive into the same performance sector as the WD Raptor when utilized in the typical gaming or enthusiast level machine where this drive will likely find a home.
We found the overall write performance and sustained transfer rates to be excellent and class leading in several of our test results to date. The drive even has the best overall thermal and acoustic characteristics of the high performance 7200rpm drives and absolutely blows away the Raptors in this respect. Of course, the 7K1000 does not have to contend with 10,000 rpm spindle speeds and firmware that is generally designed to extract the greatest amount of performance from the drive. However, considering the drive has a five platter design we think Hitachi has done a wonderful job in controlling thermals.
Hitachi's implementation of their Automatic Acoustic Management technology on the 7K1000 does not hinder performance in a noticeable manner and offers a significant advantage for those needing a spacious drive in a silent system. We cannot wait to test the CinemaStar version of this drive that will be designed with DVR operations in mind but for now our HTPC test bed has found a new drive. As stated in the article, we believe leaving AAM and NCQ turned on provides the best performance experience with this drive. While there may be a very slight performance advantage in certain benchmarks with AAM off (NCQ also), we feel like the benefits of having a near silent 1TB drive in our system is well worth the price of losing a few benchmark points.
The Deskstar 7K1000 is not without faults. We did find in our Nero Recode tests and to some degree in our Winstone tests that the drive does not perform as well as expected in handling large block sizes of data in sequential order. The Achilles heel of the Seagate 750GB drive was its inability to handle large files in non-sequential order. Hitachi has overcome this for this most part with a large 32 MB cache and from all apparent indications firmware that is tuned with operational balance in mind or even favoring non-sequential read/writes. A luxury it can afford due to its cache size and areal density advantages over the other drives in our test group.
Overall, we think Hitachi's Deskstar 7K1000 is the best 7200rpm drive we have tested to date. This is quite the accomplishment considering this is Hitachi's first 3.5-inch form factor drive that utilizes perpendicular recording technology. We still have significant testing left to complete on this drive that includes our full IPEAK and Application test suite with AAM and NCQ turned off or on along with RAID testing but we do not expect to find any surprises at this time. With an expected retail price of $399 or $0.40 per-Gigabyte this makes the 7K1000 a true value considering its size and performance. For these reasons, we highly recommend the purchase of this drive if you are currently looking for a high-capacity drive with performance to match.
We would like to thank Dell once again for providing our test samples and encourage you to visit StudioDell or take a look at the systems currently shipping with this impressive drive.
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mino - Tuesday, March 20, 2007 - link
Sorry Jared, didn't saw you comment...Otherwise, thanks for a nice review. Especially that explanation of AAM.
Many guys ask me reguraly why I don't buy non-AAM drives...
yacoub - Monday, March 19, 2007 - link
51C is a bit warm for a HD, no? I wonder how that impacts its life expectancy...yyrkoon - Tuesday, March 20, 2007 - link
To be a bit more specific, I think it was google who did testing of enterprise type drives, and did a bunch of testing, I'm sure google will turn something up ;)yyrkoon - Monday, March 19, 2007 - link
According to multiple studies done, HDD life expectancy is not affected by heat. I'm sure there are situations, where you literally have parts melting, that could be problematic, but there you have it.Justin Case - Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - link
Yes and no. A temperature around 50-60 ºC will not slowly "cook" the drive, but if it rises above a certain level (ex., 120º C), it can kill it instantly. Fast drives with a lot of platters can get hot very quickly, and if they're mounted on plastic rails (poor thermal conductors) with poor air circulation, their life expectancy is probably less than a day. I've seen it happen more than once.yyrkoon - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
Boiling point of water is around ~191F-212F, 120C is 248F, a CPU could not handle this temperature, what makes you think a HDD could ? Most consumer grade electronic do not take kindly to anything hottter than ~70C-80C. The only exception I can think of in a computer, might possibly be a graphics card, and even then, I personally would not expect it to last long as these temperatures.Most computers will not / should not exceed ~40C-50C ambient case temperature, and a lot (mine included) run much cooler. It is not uncommon for my CPU to run sub 100F (winter time), and sub 120F (summer time) under a load. Most of the time, the ambient case temperature of my case is easily under 105F.
Anyhow, the whole point here is: practise common sense with your electronics concerning heat. 120C is obviously WAY too hot for a HDD, as well as most consumer grade electronics. This also doesnt negate the fact that several studies have been done in enterprise envoirnments, to prove that heat ( again, within reason ) is not a factor in HDD falure. The whole point of these studies were to prove ( or disprove ) the point of buying enterprise grade hard drives vs. regular HDDs.
I have always wondered why you guys ( who ever claims that HDD fails often ) buy new HDDs with your new system, now I think I know ;)
phusg - Tuesday, March 20, 2007 - link
Please refer us to these multiple studies. AFAIK the only one that corroborates this is the google one, which you mention in a later post. Also I'd question this one study's relevance to home use, as not everyone leaves their drives running 24/7 as google does. My personal feeling is that repeated expansion and contraction damages drives most, and obviously if the drive is running hotter then the expansion will be greater and so will the damage to the longevity of the drive.yyrkoon - Thursday, March 22, 2007 - link
What you're reffering to is known as 'Hysteresus'. Excuse the bad spelling, if I misspelled that (it is not a word I used often). Anyhow, this is the effect, that rapid cooling / heating has on an object over time, and the object eventually becomming brittle because of this.As for the refferal, use google. Do not expect everyone to do your homework for you ;) However, I can tell you that, I personally have many HDDs, some of which are over 12 years old, have seen a lot of heat in their time, and are fully functional. One of which is a 80MB Maxtor . . .
Spoelie - Tuesday, March 20, 2007 - link
According to my own experience that's not really true. Last summer I had trouble with my main OS drive (a Seagate 7200.8 160GB) where windows would slow to a grind, there were multiple IO errors in the event log, then DMA would switch off and corrupt data showed up on the disc. I thought it died to be honest.However, before throwing it out I tried upping the cooling. I had 3 Seagate HDs in the HD chamber in front without intake fans, and they were incredibly warm to the touch. Directing a 120mm 800rpm fan over them to test immediately solved all issues, and the drive was as reliable again as ever (no permanent damage even). They're now very cool to the touch. Kinda obvious when I think about it, in a normal case the drive makes metal to metal contact and the HD bay itself functions as a large heat sink, while in the Antec there is no contact at all and the drive is "suspended in the air" on rubber grommets.
It was a particular hot summer period but still, heat shouldn't be ignored.
Gary Key - Monday, March 19, 2007 - link
It is well within the drives operating range and remember the temp dropped to 43C once we turned the front fan on in the case. I was expecting it to run warmer actually.