To those people who are considering the purchase of Hitachi hard drives... at DVinfo.net

Randall Leong · March 7th, 2011, 05:06 PM

...Western Digital has announced that it has purchased Hitachi's storage division. The deal is scheduled to be completed some time in Q3 2011. The deal will also see Hitachi gain a minority holding stake in WD.

I hope that WD doesn't try to handicap the Hitachi Deskstar and Ultrastar drives with WD's permanently-TLER-disabled firmware...

Andrew Clark · March 8th, 2011, 12:24 AM

Great...just great.

I really liked the Hitachi drives; never had a problem with them....unlike WD drives. At least for me, I have had 3 WD drives fail me....so one less alternate HDD vendor to go to is a bummer.

I guess time to go stock up on Hitachi ASAP!!

Samsung's F series seems to be doing me quite well...so far.

Thanks for posting Randall!!

Scott Chichelli · March 8th, 2011, 08:03 AM

most likely to happen is Hitachi drives will no longer exist (other than maybe the enterprise drives)
funny i remember the IBM deathstars (hitachi is formally IBM)

TLER issue ONLY applies to parity raid
it does not apply to raid 0,1 10..
for those doing parity raid you should be using the enterprise drives regardless of who makes them...

WD fail rate is no different from anyone else either.. yes i know personal experiance may tell you different
but from a reseller POV trust me they all have about a 3% fail rate (over 3 yrs)

Scott
ADK

Panagiotis Raris · March 8th, 2011, 09:27 AM

that is unfortunate; i have not had any decent luck with WD drives. Actually i had better luck with Seagate 7200.11 1TB drives (the notorious Seagates that would just suddenly expire) versus WD's (green, black, and blue). Not even in RAID, just bad sectors all of a sudden.

Jacques E. Bouchard · March 11th, 2011, 02:49 PM

I've had one WD recently go belly-up on me - I can't remember the specific error, but my computer suddenly can't even detect the drive. Apparently a not-so-uncommon problem with WD drives. Almost 500 GB of data permanently lost. It's why I now have two RAID-1 arrays.

I too am sorry to see an alternative manufacturer disappear.

J.

March 7th, 2011, 05:06 PM	#1
Randall Leong Major Player Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Melrose Park, Illinois, USA Posts: 936	To those people who are considering the purchase of Hitachi hard drives... ...Western Digital has announced that it has purchased Hitachi's storage division. The deal is scheduled to be completed some time in Q3 2011. The deal will also see Hitachi gain a minority holding stake in WD. I hope that WD doesn't try to handicap the Hitachi Deskstar and Ultrastar drives with WD's permanently-TLER-disabled firmware...

March 8th, 2011, 12:24 AM	#2
Andrew Clark Major Player Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Bay Area, CA Posts: 477	Re: To those people who are considering the purchase of Hitachi hard drives... Great...just great. I really liked the Hitachi drives; never had a problem with them....unlike WD drives. At least for me, I have had 3 WD drives fail me....so one less alternate HDD vendor to go to is a bummer. I guess time to go stock up on Hitachi ASAP!! Samsung's F series seems to be doing me quite well...so far. Thanks for posting Randall!!

March 8th, 2011, 08:03 AM	#3
Scott Chichelli Regular Crew Join Date: May 2010 Location: Alexandria KY Posts: 48	Re: To those people who are considering the purchase of Hitachi hard drives... most likely to happen is Hitachi drives will no longer exist (other than maybe the enterprise drives) funny i remember the IBM deathstars (hitachi is formally IBM) TLER issue ONLY applies to parity raid it does not apply to raid 0,1 10.. for those doing parity raid you should be using the enterprise drives regardless of who makes them... WD fail rate is no different from anyone else either.. yes i know personal experiance may tell you different but from a reseller POV trust me they all have about a 3% fail rate (over 3 yrs) Scott ADK

March 8th, 2011, 09:27 AM	#4
Panagiotis Raris Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Reading, PA USA and Athens, Greece Posts: 269	Re: To those people who are considering the purchase of Hitachi hard drives... that is unfortunate; i have not had any decent luck with WD drives. Actually i had better luck with Seagate 7200.11 1TB drives (the notorious Seagates that would just suddenly expire) versus WD's (green, black, and blue). Not even in RAID, just bad sectors all of a sudden.

March 11th, 2011, 02:49 PM	#5
Jacques E. Bouchard Major Player Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Montreal, Canada Posts: 442	Re: To those people who are considering the purchase of Hitachi hard drives... I've had one WD recently go belly-up on me - I can't remember the specific error, but my computer suddenly can't even detect the drive. Apparently a not-so-uncommon problem with WD drives. Almost 500 GB of data permanently lost. It's why I now have two RAID-1 arrays. I too am sorry to see an alternative manufacturer disappear. J.