Hitachi Introduces Cinema Range of Hard Disks

[scgf]

I saw this news (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=6128) on Geekzone this evening - looks like a good source of drives for upgrading TiVos when they eventually become available. The site says third quarter 2006.

[blindlemon]

I personally wouldn't touch Hitachi drives for use in a TiVo :down:

The specs aren't anything to write home about and Hitachi's reliability isn't either. I will be evaluating some Seagate DB35 (http://www.seagate.com/content/docs/pdf/marketing/PO-DB35.pdf) drives this week, but for the moment the front runner IMHO is the Samsung HA250JC (http://www.samsung.com/sg/products/hddodd/harddiskdrive/ha250jc.asp), by a mile.

[Raisltin Majere]

Any idea how much those drives cost, blindlemon?

I have no means of buying over the internet so am restricted to shop prices and I recently found some 400gb seagates for (approx) £150. Which I thought was quite reasonable.

What's the cost on the 'net?

[blindlemon]

That's not bad for a shop price

The Seagate DB35 (250gb) drives seem to be currently about 20% more expensive than the 'standard' 7200rpm Seagate drives so you are definitely going to pay a premium for them.

They are also about 10% more expensive than the Samsung HA250JC, but do have a 5 year warranty compared to Samsungs' 3 years.

Coincidentally, I have just received 2x DB35 drives (ST3250823ACE) for evaluation - so I'll have a play with them and post the results shortly :)

[johala_reewi]

I have not had good experiences with Hitachi disk drives. They don't seem to last very long (in a computer) and I would not recommend putting one in a Tivo where it will get 24/7 use.

I can recommend Seagate Barracuda drives. They last for ages and I have had a 250Gb one in my Tivo for some time. They also come in very big sizes, are reasonably quiet and don't cost a lot.

[blindlemon]

OK, I've had 2x 250gb DB35 (Seagate "CE") drives on test since yesterday and can report the following:-

1. These appear to be based on the 7200.8 series of drives rather than 7200.9. The bigger ones, I guess, may be based on the 7200.9 - and will have to be for the 500gb - but we'll have to wait and see on that. Unfortunately, the "standard" 7200.9 series drives seem to have a higher startup power requirement than the 7200.8s and I haven't been able to get a pair of 7200.9s of > 120gb each to power up in a TiVo, whereas 2x 7200.8s of any size are absolutely fine. These "CE" drives are touted to have a lower startup power requirement than the 7200.9s, and sure enough these 250gb drives also work fine as a pair, but this is what I'd expect anyway if they're based on the 7200.8 series.

2. Seeks sound "softer" than the Seagate 7200.8 and 7200.9 drives - more of a chuckle than a chatter, but still significantly louder than a Samsung HA250JC in "quiet" mode.

3. Heat output appears to be less than the 7200.8 drives - these still get pretty warm, bordering on hot after a few hours use, just not as hot as the standard drives. Still a lot warmer than a HA250JC though, which never seems to get more than lukewarm.

4. As these are still 7200rpm drives (why?) some vibration/hum is still present. This tends to vary from drive to drive anyway, but the 2 evaluation drives I have seem pretty close to the better end of what I've seen for 7200rpm drives. Still not a patch on the HA250JC though, as those babies are almost entirely vibration free - so much so that I sometimes feel the need to double-check they're actually plugged in when I'm testing them!

5. Can't say anything about reliability based on a 24 hour test - but if they're as good as the other Seagate drives then this is where they may score best. Interestingly, the 2 evaluation drives I was supplied with have no warranty (they're OEM-only), but the retail drives should all have Seagate's industry-leading 5 year warranty, which may sway some in their favour.

So, in conclusion, if you really crave a 5 year warranty and are somewhat sensitive to noise then these are probably a better bet than Seagate's standard 7200rpm drives for TiVo use. However, they come at a price (currently around 20% extra) and still can't touch the cheaper Samsung HA250JC for quietness and cool running.

[Heuer]

Hitachi Deskstar disks were highly prone to failure and as they were installed in many Dell PC's the scale of the problem was enormous. My own HD died dramatically so I speak from experience! I understand that Hitachi were bought out by someone else who is trying to recover the situation. Try a google search on Hitachi HD failures and you should find out the old and current situation. AFAIK the new Hitachi disks are made by someone else but be careful.

[redav]

Hey up

The ST3250823ACE DB35 is not a new drive. The product was launched just over 12 months ago and is always based on the latest 7200 model, however at launch in Feb 2005 it didn't have the 5 year warranty because it was an "OEM" product.

Maybe Blindlemon can confirm if this has changed now it seems to be on a more openly sold product!

The differences are as follows.

The DB35 pulls about .4 watts higher when idle than a 7200.8 which seems odd for a media drive! Must be something to do quicker idle to non idle times!

The DB35 has a set of sequential streaming commands which allows for better media streaming. It could in effect perform 10 data streams at once, so if you have 10 people steaming programs, from your Tivo, over a network you laughing!!!!!!!!!

It also has content security features (PPV), and before anyone ask's I have no idea how to access or use them. I do know they are used by SKY+ though!

And the power control is altered to reduce the load on the PSU at start-up. Basically it draws the power slower.

[blindlemon]

The ST3250823ACE DB35 is not a new drive. The product was launched just over 12 months ago and is always based on the latest 7200 modelWell, it hasn't been readily available in the UK and my Seagate distributor has only just been able to get hold of 2 evaluation drives last week!

The drives I have are clearly based on the 7200.8 series - note the model number ST3250x23ACE, which is the 7200.8 model ST3250x23A with "CE" at the end, whereas the 250gb 7200.9 drives are ST3250x24A. Of course, maybe these evaluation units are old stock, but it doesn't really make much difference anyway as they're not as quiet or cool running as the Samsung HA250JC and are more expensive to boot!

the power control is altered to reduce the load on the PSU at start-up. Basically it draws the power slower.Hopefully then, if Seagate start shipping CE derivatives of the 7200.9, the lower startup power requirements will at least make them useable in pairs in a TiVo, unlike all the standard 7200.9s (apart from 120gb) currently available.

Watch this space...

The DB35 has a set of sequential streaming commands which allows for better media streaming. It could in effect perform 10 data streams at once, so if you have 10 people steaming programs, from your Tivo, over a network you laughing!!!!!!!!!Only if the PVR software can use them - which a UK TiVo with 5-year old software clearly cannot.

[ALanJay]

So, in conclusion, if you really crave a 5 year warranty and are somewhat sensitive to noise then these are probably a better bet than Seagate's standard 7200rpm drives for TiVo use. However, they come at a price (currently around 20% extra) and still can't touch the cheaper Samsung HA250JC for quietness and cool running.

Hi,

I am just about to replace the drives in one of my TiVo's and it sounds like the Samsung HA250JC are recomended any sugestions on where to buy? (DABS seems to have at £71.46 - but none in stock).

With this drive do I use it is default mode or do people suggest any changes to the default settings?

Also it is a number of years since I last upgraded my hard disks any changes to the tools that I should be worrying about :)

[redav]

Hey up

Samsung drive can be setup with all sorts of options. Think you can set it to run extra quite.

However that maybe the default option on these drive anyway!

Its very easy to setup anyway.

You can down-load the diags here

http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/hutil.htm

[Prof. Yaffle]

Hi,

I am just about to replace the drives in one of my TiVo's and it sounds like the Samsung HA250JC are recomended any sugestions on where to buy? (DABS seems to have at £71.46 - but none in stock).



www.komplett.co.uk have it listed with 100+ in stock for £68 inc VAT plus £6.50 shipping here (http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=308644). Was impressed by Komplett when I used them last week.

Hey up

Samsung drive can be setup with all sorts of options. Think you can set it to run extra quite.

However that maybe the default option on these drive anyway!

Samsung drives are set with the acoustic management turned Off by default (or at least the 300gb ones are)

[ALanJay]

Thanks for the info.

[johala_reewi]

Hi,

I am just about to replace the drives in one of my TiVo's and it sounds like the Samsung HA250JC are recomended any sugestions on where to buy? (DABS seems to have at £71.46 - but none in stock).

With this drive do I use it is default mode or do people suggest any changes to the default settings?

Also it is a number of years since I last upgraded my hard disks any changes to the tools that I should be worrying about :)

Same tools will be OK but if you are going for a large HD you will need a different boot CD to patch the tivo kernel to take large drives. Steve Conrad's page has the info.

http://www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo/index.html

[Gavin]

Your over stating the problem.

Hitachi Deskstar disks were highly prone to failure and as they were installed in many Dell PC's the scale of the problem was enormous. My own HD died dramatically so I speak from experience!.

Not really, it was a series of drives in the IBM hard drive family. It was only a few specific models of drive, but at the time the 60GB one was very popular, and it got into a lot of systems. As the biggest affected one was 75GB, I doubt anyone has one in a tivo (or even PC now).

It just happened Dell decided to buy a shed load of them, nothing unusual in that they bulk buy in big qualtities, and they just got the bad batch.

I personally had a 120GB Hitachi in my Tivo for 2 years with no unusual problem, only replaced it this year as there were getting to be some bad blocks and it caused Tivo to glitch on screen, it's now in my media server working fine after a re-formatting to mark as bad the bad sectors. I could have reformatted it in Tivo but it was easier to copy it to a fresh drive and get Tivo back up faster, and I needed another drive in the media server anyway.

I understand that Hitachi were bought out by someone else who is trying to recover the situation. Try a google search on Hitachi HD failures and you should find out the old and current situation. AFAIK the new Hitachi disks are made by someone else but be careful.

Deskstar's were made by IBM at the time, and the mess over the failing GXP series meant IBM sold the name and rights to Hitachi (see HGST.com). There no better or worse that other brands, it was just one of those things.

Fujistu had a whole series of drives fail due to problems in some of the underlying controller chips, they estimated 4.9 million drives would fail early. They were made by Cirrus Logic for Fujitsu, and the problem was a change in some part of the chip by one of Cirrus Logics sub contracter. We had a load of them fail at work as they were in a lot of Compaqs, just like the IBM's in Dell.

I've had most of the major drive makes at home and no major failures, most of mine "fail" as they become too small and I buy a new one. My work is in IT, I've seen all makes fail, sure where there are problems such as IBM or Fujistu there are higher failure rate, but drives of all makes fail, and with the exception of known problems I've never seen any drive fail, (or not fail) any more more often than any other.

By all meant stick to a "proper" brand, but I'd say there is no differance in reliability of most home drive offerings. If you really want to get a better drive you need to get one certified as for AV use and is designed to be run all day every day for years, and thats not available at a reasonable cost in the market (as they are normally only supplied in hundreds to the OEM makers of PVR's).

However in the real world you'll usually buy a home PC drive, from an online vendor where price, or what they have in stock is probably more important, bearing in mine Tivo can't support SATA or SCSI, so you'll never get the high end server drives that are designed to running all the time.