Hitachi Deskstar 0A34915 HDS721010KLA330 7K1000 1 TB SATA 3.5-Inch Hard Drive

This is a great Terabyte disk, but note that the 7K1000 has documented compatibility issues with some early first generation SATA controllers. I hit this on a VIA 8237 controller. Hitachi note issues with the VIA 8237A chipset, Marvell Gen 1 series and the Sierra Logic SR-1216 chipset, but there may be others. Unfortunately Hitachi don't provide any workarounds. There are no jumpers to set a lower default speed and even their Feature Tool won't change the default SATA mode for this drive. Sigh.

This shouldn't be an issue with any recent controllers. After I replaced my elderly VIA 8237 controller, my experience has been very good. The 7K1000 seems to be delivering both the promised high performance and low noise.

By default the Automatic Acoustic Management is set to maximize performance. Even then, the seeks are relatively quiet. I used Hitachi's Feature Tool to optimize for quiet seeks. This has a mild impact on seek performance, but now the seeks...Read more

I purchased one of these for an internal back-up drive for a friend's computer. I'm a believer that internal back-ups make a lot more sense than an external drive for multiple reasons that include faster transfer speeds over SATA than USB 2.0, less wear and tear on the drive, etc...

This drive did the job until about a month ago when it developed the all too common 'clicks-of-immanent-death.' Never a quiet drive by any standard, it became crazy loud once it developed a problem. It sounded like a rabid squirrel chomping on nuts. The drive continued to work long enough to get a replacement and transfer over the data, but died soon after. Many who have owned this drive for more than a year are experiencing this same problem (check newegg reviews). It appears that this set of hard drives has well documented reliability issues.

Still a good value since you can find these very cheap these days, but be aware that they are prone to problems.

If you...Read more

I put four of these drives in my Mac Pro. Two of them weren't even be visible for formatting in Disk Utility and had to be replaced. The ones I have gotten working have been working continuously just fine.