Hitachi GST Deskstar 7K2000 HDS722020ALA330 (0F10311) 2TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Still a good drive if you have the time and inclination to waste weeks testing them because the failure rate, right out of the box or within a dozen hours is HORRENDOUS.

Cons: Failure rate on 10 drives was 40%. That means 4 drives RMA’d. Weeks of testing. Worse, at 40% failures, I expect 1-2 of the RMA’d drives to fail. This will take weeks more because I can’t trust the new drives to work if the RAID 5 fails! I have to test everything at 100% on my end…

Overall Review: As of today, I only have one of two NAS machines running. The second may still be weeks away due to these drive failures. I did order two of the same drives from a competitor because I can’t wait through the entire RMA delay. They were sent with the same shipper as NewEgg but were packaged with soft foam, not hard styrofoam and paper like NewEgg. Those two drives were flawless. Maybe something, maybe not, but these drives have been a horrible waste of resources, especially time on testing and waiting for RMAs.

Pros: When they work, they perform well, but two failed within 30 days and the third looks like it’s going…

Cons: This is my second failed Hitachi HDS722020ALA330 and it looks like my 3rd may be heading south also (but it is out of Newegg’s 30 day warranty exchange). These are all different production batches going back to last April. Of the seven 2Tb drives I have purchased through Newegg, only these Hitachi’s have been dying out compared to the WD’s, Seagate and Samsungs. They also seem to run on average about 10c hotter than the other brands as well. Not happy with Hitachi or the time and costs involved!

Overall Review: These drives just don’t seem reliable – three different production batches in a 6+ month span.
They are in different positions in a well ventilated Antec P-180 case. They are used for .iso media storage and do not get “hammered on” either…
Not worth the hassle and costs to return!

Pros: It’s moderately quiet. Speed is acceptable. The price is quite good for a 2TB…’tis why i bought this one…

Cons: It runs a little warmer than I expected it to, but it’s not a hinderance yet.

Overall Review: Also, people have a issue with Deskstars regarding their high failure rate. I hope I don’t experience the same thing.

Pros: I have 9 running in a raid with absolutely no problems. Oldest drive is about 6 months old. Running in a full tower case with 5 of them in a chenbro 5-in-3. No heat issues and I would consider 1 80mm and 1 120mm fan minimal cooling. Performance is good but don’t have any benchmarks for you.

Cons: None

Pros: I purchased 10 retail boxed versions of these HDs back in November 2009; configured in a RAID6 array for 16TB of storage. I added 3 more of the bare drive versions (being reviewed) 13 months later (December 2010). I haven’t had ONE drive go bad after 24/7 operation for 18 months! Performance: 300+MB/s (that’s megaBYTEs) sustained file transfers from one partition to another on the same RADI6 array…

Cons: Absolutely none to mention! ;o)

Overall Review: Controller: HighPoint RocketRAID 4321 PCI-Express x8 SATA / SAS + BBU-04 Battery Backup
Enclosure: PC-Pitstop 15-bay SAS Expander Enclosure w/4-meter SAS Cable
Server: Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case; Tyan Tempest i5000XL; Dual Xeon X5355 2.66Ghz Quad-Core; 10GB DDR2; 4x 1TB HDs in RAID5 Array

25+ years experience assembling/troubleshooting PCs and other types of computers…

Pros: More IOPs than 5400 and 5900RPM drives
Quite performance

Cons: A little warm in my StarTech.com dock

Overall Review: I have (4) of these in my Netgear ReadyNAS NV. I get good transfer rates and few, if any, SMART errors.

Pros: Got 1 in a QNAP 212 NAS and it seems to be working OK.

Cons: 1 of 2 drives purchased arrived DOA. I find this to be super annoying. Really need to package these so much better.

Pros: Amazing $/TB ratio. True 7200RPM, not a “green” or “slow” drive. Hitachi 3yr warranty.

Cons: Unbelievable ratio of DOA drives. I’ve had 14 of these drives delivered already…4 of them were DOA. Unless you call NewEgg to complain about this absurdity, you will have to pay to return your brand new DOA drives. The shipment box was not damaged, the bubble wrap around the static bags was not damaged, but the static bags themselves were noticeably damaged. Why would somebody ship out a drive that is visibily damaged AND audibly damaged…meaning if you lightly shake the drive up and down they don’t sound tight. You can hear the platter moving vertically…which is a symptom of a worn drive…not a new drive.

Overall Review: I would keep buying these if I had some assurance that they would be NEW, non DOA, drives. I love Hitachi and it saddens me to see such horrendous QA at NewEgg. I say NewEgg because I ordered four of these drives from PC Connection and all 4 were rock solid from the get-go.