4 TB Hitachi Desktop Hard Drive Starts Selling in Japan

[Cristian_25H]

While the hard drive industry as a whole continues to be affected by the Thailand floods, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) is ending 2011 on a high note by starting shipments of its first 4 TB 3.5-inch HDD. Codenamed HDS5C4040ALE630 and likely part of the Deskstar 5K (we're guessing 5K4000) series, the 4TB drive has yet to be announced by Hitachi but it can be found on sale in Japan, priced at 26,800 yen (~ US $ 345 / 259 Euro).

Hitachi's 4 TB hard drive has 32 MB of buffer memory, a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface and makes use of the CoolSpin technology, which means its (likely four) platters operate at around 5900 RPM. No word yet on a 7200 RPM version but it's probably in the cards for 2012.



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[Deleted member 3]

About time, affordable harddrives have been stuck on 2TB for far too long. Larger disks available means 3TB goes down in price.

 

[faramir]

Not buying their disk ever again

IBM/Hitachi DeathStar ... It doesn't obliterate planets though, it obliterates itself (and your data along with it).

 

[NdMk2o1o]

IBM/Hitachi DeathStar ... It doesn't obliterate planets though, it obliterates itself (and your data along with it).

Oh please dont start with the if it's not WD or Samsung crap, and if your stupid enough not to back your data up then you can hardly complain when you lose it because your HDD fails can you?

 

[Deleted member 3]

IBM/Hitachi DeathStar ... It doesn't obliterate planets though, it obliterates itself (and your data along with it).

That was many years ago. Not really relevant anymore.

 

[MikeMurphy]

^ exactly true. Every manufacturer has had bum hard drives.

It seems like HDD reliability is at an all-time low right now. Seems like stuff is failing way more often now.

On the flipside I would be happy to pay more $ for reliability, but even the "reliable" stuff turns out to be crap with mostly marketing fluff.

 

[Completely Bonkers]

I would like to stick one of those 4TB drives in my 1UE fileserver... and have a SSD on a SATA stick (Disk on Module) at 8 or 16GB with the OS on it, e.g. http://linitx.com/product/12654. I prefer my data drives to be separate from the OS. And in a 1UE (at least the one I have) there is only room for one drive if the drive is 3.5"

Shame that Disk on Modules (DOM) are so expensive and still a bit S.L.O.W. But for 24/7 fileserver, probably ok.

 

[RejZoR]

Oh please dont start with the if it's not WD or Samsung crap, and if your stupid enough not to back your data up then you can hardly complain when you lose it because your HDD fails can you?

Though, tell me where to backup 4TB of data... Oh yes, by buying another 4TB drive. Which kind of ruins the entire point of owning a computer in the end...

 

[Completely Bonkers]

Clever sales strategy eh? Therefore you need to buy two!

Or you put the 4TB in your backup system... to back up your various PCs and laptops that have smaller HDDs.

To reduce the burden of backups, I now have an Atom based fileserver running RAID mirror on two big identical drives. And I keep my desktop/laptop with smaller HDDs/SSDs and try to file off as much as I can to the fileserver.

It's not a perfect system... I'm not actually backing up the desktop or laptop, but I can't spend my life running backups all the time.

The thing that stops most people filing off to a fileserver is the OVERHEAD TIME of organising your files. etc. But actually, if you get into the discipline, you can get used to it.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Though, tell me where to backup 4TB of data... Oh yes, by buying another 4TB drive. Which kind of ruins the entire point of owning a computer in the end...

The same way you back up any amount of data you copy it so yes to another 4TB drive or you back up only important data to a smaller drive, its not rocket science and is a very basic principle, why you don't seem to grasp that I do not know, and if you can't be bothered doing that well who's hard cheese is it when it does die and you have lost all of your data? of course you would probably be the first to blame the HDD manufacturer when really it's your fault you didn't back it up in the first place, the size matters not.

I see you have 1 2TB drive, do you have important data on that and if so where is it backed up to?

I don't back up all my data, my pictures however I do as they are more important than any games/movies music etc and they are backed up to another drive as well as the cloud for peace of mind.

 

[Deleted member 3]

I would like to stick one of those 4TB drives in my 1UE fileserver... and have a SSD on a SATA stick (Disk on Module) at 8 or 16GB with the OS on it, e.g. http://linitx.com/product/12654. I prefer my data drives to be separate from the OS. And in a 1UE (at least the one I have) there is only room for one drive if the drive is 3.5"

Shame that Disk on Modules (DOM) are so expensive and still a bit S.L.O.W. But for 24/7 fileserver, probably ok.

Use compact flash instead?

 

[N-Gen]

What happened to Seagate's 4TB 7200rpm sub-200euro drives? Sure the price is not gonna be that, but where are they?

 

[repman244]

Though, tell me where to backup 4TB of data... Oh yes, by buying another 4TB drive. Which kind of ruins the entire point of owning a computer in the end...

Tape drive, it's still the best backup and quite cheap.

 

[Jarman]

tapes are more expensive than hard drives

 

[NdMk2o1o]

tapes are more expensive than hard drives

No there not, drives are another story.

 

[repman244]

tapes are more expensive than hard drives

Tapes are very cheap for the amount of space you get, but the unit costs quite a lot. But still, you can just buy a used unit, they are built like tanks and can last for ages anyway.

 

[MRCL]

Hitachi eh? Nice. 4tb could come in very handy, also if that means 2tb/3tb prices go down.

 

[xaira]

hitachi is a good brand now, i own a 500gb that goes hard, what im worried about is the "first to market curse" where they ship the buggy first drives so they can say they were first

 

[Jarman]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Computing-/58058/i.html?_nkw=dat&_catref=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m1538

I assume that's a typical price for them(i dont really know)?? Even at current escilated hdd prices that is more than a 2tb hdd will cost you

"ultrium" tapes, whatever they are, seem quite competetive. But surely they are slower than a hdd?? and still quite small?? Biggest I can find is 400 gb compressed??

I'm sure they have their place, but at home i'd rather just buy a second hdd for backup if needed

 

[repman244]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Computing-/58058/i.html?_nkw=dat&_catref=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m1538

I assume that's a typical price for them(i dont really know)?? Even at current escilated hdd prices that is more than a 2tb hdd will cost you

"ultrium" tapes, whatever they are, seem quite competetive. But surely they are slower than a hdd?? and still quite small?? Biggest I can find is 400 gb compressed??

I'm sure they have their place, but at home i'd rather just buy a second hdd for backup if needed

New units for newest Ultrium tapes are are up to 4000$ (http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/12169-304612-3446236-3446236-3446236-4150338.html) and support 3TB tapes (1,5TB uncompressed).
The speed on LTO4 is around 120MB/s on LTO5 it's even higher due to higher density.

Totally agree that for home use you don't need anything special, a second HDD for critical data will be just fine.
But I still prefer to backup to tapes, it may be slow on the old tape drive I have, but at least the data is safe

 

[bpgt64]

Tape drive, it's still the best backup and quite cheap.

Negatron 5000 sir. There are many better solutions in the market right now that are much cheaper and more responsive than Tapes.

Asigra.com -- Check em out.

 

[Lionheart]

Looks good but 32MB cache, is that a-tad low for such a large drive or does it really matter?

 

[ironwolf]

Looks good but 32MB cache, is that a-tad low for such a large drive or does it really matter?

If it's a 5900 RPM spinner, I could probably see why only 32MB cache. The 7200 RPM version I could surely see a 64MB cache. Would also help differentiate the two models more and the prices on them.

 

[yogurt_21]

Though, tell me where to backup 4TB of data... Oh yes, by buying another 4TB drive. Which kind of ruins the entire point of owning a computer in the end...

apparently you've never heard of RAID.

 

[Sasqui]

RAID1 sucks.

Thanks for that insightful comment. Why?

BACK OT: This news got me wondering about Moore's law applied to HDD's. And the fact that it just doesn't seem to apply...