Introduction

Before we continue with the review, here is a little history about Hitachi Global Storage Technologies:

"Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was founded in 2003 and was formed as a result of the strategic combination of IBM and HitachiÙs storage technology businesses. Storage is one of HitachiÙs five core businesses; substantial technology and financial resources have been committed to ensure a successful and profitable business. The companyÙs vision is to enable users to fully engage in the digital lifestyle by providing access to large amounts of storage capacity in formats suitable for the office, on the road and in the home. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is positioned to immediately advance the role of hard disk drives beyond traditional computing environments to consumer electronics and other emerging applications."

Hitachi are determined to kick up a storm with this drive, so let's see how it performs. 

Features  

Hitachi 7K1000

Hitachi 7K1000

The Deskstar 7K1000 has five platters each of 200GB and 10 heads taking care of  the read/write routine. Other features are pretty standard - SATA 3.0 Gb/s interface, 7200rpm rotational speed, 3.5 inch form factor. This hard drive has a 32MB data buffer as compared to the 16MB and 8MB buffers in smaller capacity drives.
The 7K1000's enormous storage capacity is made possible with the move to Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) technology instead of Longitudinal Recording. PMR technology was invented to overcome the constraints imposed by the superparamagnetic effect which occurs when the microscopic magnetic grains on the disk become so small that the ambient temperature can ultimately result in loss of data.

As its name indicates, longitudinal recording aligns the data bits horizontally, parallel to the surface of the disk. In contrast, perpendicular recording aligns bits vertically, perpendicular to the disk. In this orientation materials and smaller crystalline grains can be used wherein it is harder to reverse the magnetic orientation, resulting in smaller physical bits that are still stable at room temperature.

One issue that will confuse many buyers is that you will not be getting the 1 Terabyte of storage after formatting as advertised. This is because of two reasons. Firstly, Hard drive manufacturers define "terabyte" as 1012 bytes where as the Operating System calculates 1 terabyte as 240 bytes. Secondly, upon formatting, the OS takes up some space on the hard drive. Hence, you end up with about 935GB of usable space after formatting. Still enough to hold about 225,000 MP3s!

Unique to Hitachi drives, the Deskstar 7K1000 features three advanced low-power idle modes – active, unload and low-power. Together, they reduce power consumption at the drive level up to 20%, optimize non-operational latency and lower drive temperature for cooler system operation Through a patented ramp load/unload design disk heads (in non-operating modes) ar unloaded to a ramp outside the disk where they rest in a low-power ‘unload idleÙ state until activated. In low RPM drives, this can reduce power by up to 50%. Ramp load/unload provides tangible benefits for the drive and host product. It greatly minimizes the riskof shock damage by eliminating direct contact between the heads and disks. Reduced wear and heat improve overall drive reliability. In the event of power loss to the drive, heads are unloaded using energy extracted from the spinning disks. This patented power-saving feature helps to reduce overall maintenance costs and extends the drive service life.

Another contributor to Deskstar 7K1000Ùs exceptional shock performance and power savings is the use of compact, low-mass femto air-bearing sliders An integrated thermal sensor monitors operating temperature, enabling the host processor to intelligently adjust airflow as needed for cooling. Sensor integration reduces component cost and increases reliability.Deskstar 7K1000Ùs thermal fly-height control (TFC) uses an integrated heating element to precisely maintain a constant fly-height throughout read and write operations. This reduces raw soft error rate and, in turn, improves overall data integrity, drive performance and reliability Deskstar 7K1000Ùs iridium-manganese chromium (IrMnCr) read head sensor technolog offers better performance and reliability in harsh conditions.

Specifications

Interface: Serial ATA 3.0 Gb/s

Capacity: 1 TB
Sector size: 512 bytes
Disks: 5
Heads: 10

Data buffer: 32 MB
Rotational speed: 7200 RPM
Media transfer rate (max): 1070 Mb/s
Interface transfer rate (max): 300 MB/s
Latency: 4.17 ms (average, 7200 RPM)
Seek time: 8.5 ms read (typical), 9.2 ms write (typical)
Silent-seek time: 14 ms read (typical), 15 ms write (typical)

Error rate (non-recoverable): 1 per 1.0 E15 bits transferred
Load/unload cycles (at 40°C): 50,000
Warranty: 3 years

Power Supply: +5 VDC (+/- 5%), +12 VDC (+10% / -8%)
Start up current (max): 2.0 A (+12V), 1.2 A (+5V)
Random read/write (average): 13.6 W
Silent read/write (average): 10.8 W
Idle (average): 9.0 W
Unload idle: 6.9 W
Low RPM idle: 4.5 W

Acoustics Idle: 2.9 bels (typical)
Silent seek, Seek: 3.0 bels (typical), 3.2 bels (typical)

Physical Dimensions: H (26.1 mm) x W (101.6 mm) x D (147 mm)
Weight (max): 700 g

Temperature: 5 to 60 °C operating, -40 to 70 °C non-operating
Relative humidity (non-condensing): 8 to 90% operating, 5 to 95% non-operating
RoHS4 compliant: Yes