Hitachi 1 TB 16MB 7200RPM SATA Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 0A38016

Comment: Bought two of these to upgrade/replace failing Samsung hard drives in my Buffalo Linkstation Pro Duo NAS. They have been spinning 24x7 for over a year now with no issue. They generate very little heat and are relatively quiet. Very happy with the purchase.

Comment: Worked great while it lasted- drive failed after 8 months.
Giving it two stars though because even due to random freezes / I/O failures all data was able to be successfully extracted.

Last week started experiencing random I/O delays where system would freeze while HDD LED was on solid.
Initially figured it was a driver glitch / something wrong with the SATA controller on the motherboard.
Turned it on this morning and BIOS reported drive SMART failure- hooked it up to a nearby Linux system and read SMART codes from the drive.
Total power on hours: 3849 ~ 160 days

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: Hitachi HDT721010SLA360
Firmware Version: ST6OA3AA
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: ATA-8-ACS revision 4
Local Time is: Thu Mar 4 12:49:00 2010 EST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: FAILED!
Drive failure expected in less than 24 hours. SAVE ALL DATA.

Comment: I purchased five of the Hitachi 0A38016 drives in March 2009 at $86.99 each for use in a Thecus N5200 NAS running as RAID 5. They replaced five Seagate 7200.10 750 MB drives.

The drives (as well as the N5200) have been on 24/7 since April 2009 with no problems. The file index for the data is rebuilt every 12 hours so they get a good workout every day even if the files themselves aren't actually accessed. This is the first time I've used Hitachi GST drives and I've been very pleased with their performance so far.

I noticed today that the Amazon price is $127.99 which is steep for a drive of this size. They do have a 7K-series 1 TB in a retail box (Hitachi 1 TB Deskstar SATA 7200 RPM 32 MB Internal HDD HD31000 IDK/7K - Retail) for $79.99 which makes more sense. Additionally, the 0A38016 apparently ships in "frustration free packaging." I'm all for eliminating excess packaging materials and plastic clam shells but I think hard drives packaged specifically for retail sale are better capable of withstanding the bumps and bruises of shipping. For that reason alone I would avoid buying bare drives (like the 0A38016).

Some reviewers have indicated a negative experience with Hitachi's warranty service. I haven't had any warranty issues with these drives so I can't offer any insight regarding their warranty service. What I can say is that I've had excellent dealings with both Hitachi Customer Service and Technical Support regarding other Hitachi consumer electronics product purchases in the past.

Comment: My Hitachi drive showed up DOA thanks to Amazon's lame "frustration free" packaging. The drive was packaged in a static bag and a large cardboard box with no padding or plastic tray to isolate the drive. The drive did not survive shipping because it was knocked around like boots in the dryer and wouldn't even power up. Do yourself a big favor and only buy the retail packaged hard drives from Amazon which will ensure there's at least a reasonable amount of protection for the drive during shipping. You are asking for a major headache down the line by purchasing bulk drives from Amazon.

Comment: I bought this product in July 2009. It worked fine until 1 month ago (Nov/2009). It started to have problems and then I just lost my Windows.
After reinstalled it, again I lost everything.
Reinstalled as a second HD and it keeps with problems sometimes I can't turn the computer on.
Contacted Hitachi's Customers service in Brazil and it is ridiculous the way they deal with customers. Not a valid answer. The manager is always traveling and no response.
My advice is DON'T BUY THIS PRODUCT. A high techonology product like a Hard Drive that crashes it's unacceptable. You can loose all your memories, an important documents or even all your important stuff.
I would expect that Hitachi at least would contact me to fix the problem.