Warm? Hitachi Deskstar 200GB 7200rpm 8MB HD - $110 AR at Fry's

[discopalace]

Picked this up yesterday. It's $200 out-the-door. The rebate is for $90, and it is provided by Fry's. Final price after rebate is $110. $0.60/GB ain't a bad deal imho!

I have heard some people have unfavorable views of Hitachi Deskstar drives (which were formerly IBM before they spun that division off). Then again, I have heard unfavorable views of all HD vendors! I have 2 Deskstar drives in other computers, and they have been fine.

 

[popeye44]

their nickname was Deathstar.. and IBM was losing money in the lawsuits being filed against them for their drives. As much as I hope hitachi succeeds in creating a nice drive. they really should get as far away as they can from anything close to ibm naming schemes. I've RMA'd more IBM drives in 3 years than any other single drive. I have 80 users I support. from OEM HP to Retail drives in personal systems they've been nothing but a nightmare.

I agree with your statement about reviews from all vendors, However not only I have had these types of problems, It was such that lawsuits were filed. I don't think I've ever heard of Maxtor or WD being sued for those reasons. You may be lucky.. heck I've been lucky I've probably 13 ibm drives in the field right now with no failure that have been running 2 years.. That being said if it has a 3 yar warranty this is a nice deal.. and as such if I had a fry's i'd probably have another go at a deathstar. If you need a storage drive that's not holding critical data these may be a really good choice the price is certainly right.

 

[discopalace]

Ah, interesting. Yep, it's got a 3-yr warranty!

 

[addisonp]

I do hope the deskstars have improved since my last one died within 6 months of purchase and it pretty much put me off of all IBM hard drives from then on. No problems with the seagates, WD or Maxtor HD's that I've had in my system for 3+ years.

 

[derby]

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200310/20031007HDS722525VLSA80_sp.html


"Combining the first significant performance increase in over a year with whisper-quiet operation, Hitachi's Deskstar 7K250 proves that there's a lot of life left in the venerable 7200 RPM design. Western Digital's three-year run at the 7200 RPM ATA title has finally come to a close. Available across a wide range of capacities in both parallel and serial ATA interfaces, the 7K250 should top the list of all performance-oriented users seeking a new drive for their desktop rig."

 

[Doggiedog]

Originally posted by: derby
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200310/20031007HDS722525VLSA80_sp.html


"Combining the first significant performance increase in over a year with whisper-quiet operation, Hitachi's Deskstar 7K250 proves that there's a lot of life left in the venerable 7200 RPM design. Western Digital's three-year run at the 7200 RPM ATA title has finally come to a close. Available across a wide range of capacities in both parallel and serial ATA interfaces, the 7K250 should top the list of all performance-oriented users seeking a new drive for their desktop rig."

Still doesn't address the longevity issue.

I bought my 60GXPs because of all the reviews giving it top performance scores. Unfortunately, they never addressed the longevitiy issue and how problematic the 60GXPs would become. I've got one 75GXP still running out of 4 that I bought. When that one goes, it'll be the end of Deathstars for me.

 

[sparkyclarky]

My 30 gig 75GXP died after a hair under 2 years of use. I didn't even bother RMAing it after hearing about how IBM's process tended to go with that (often PITA RMAs and getting a refurbed drive back on a model with a huge failure rate). But I've heard the new ones are more reliable.

 

[xionn]

I've had 5 out 5 Ibm Death star drives (of varring sizes).

Of the 5 RMA's 4 have since died, the last one is up on ebay (surprised?) the other 4 will be up on ebay soon. And yes all 5 RMA's were from hitachi

 

[MiataPaul]

I work at IBM and was servicing a guys machine who said he went to the factory in Singapore and I mentioned the failure rate of the 30 gig laptop drives. He said he was not surprised because he said the factory was filthy and there were no clean rooms or anything. He said in his evaluation to the management he said there was no way they could produce reliable drives. They said they did not care because they could replace 2 or three of the drives for what it would cost to make them reliable in the first place. Just got to love that cost analysis. That being said I have a 120 gig in my desktop but got it really cheap and I needed a drive and that was all that was available in my price range. Not sure any of them are really any better without going way up in cost.
So for an MP3 server or something like that I would say go for it, but for mission critical I would not use one.