Hitachi Deskstar 7k1000 1TB Hard Drive ReviewSeptember 10th, 2007 It wasn't that long ago that Hitachi was the first the reach the 500GB single hard drive milestone, and with the release of the 7k1000, Hitachi retains the capacity crown, also becoming the first to pack 1000 gigabytes into a single drive. But it's not always about finishing first (ask any woman), the performance has to be there too. Join HardwareLogic as we throw the 7k1000 into our testbed and see if it performs as big as it's capacity.
It
wasn't that long ago that Hitachi was the first the reach the 500GB
single hard drive milestone, and with the release of the 7k1000,
Hitachi retains the capacity crown, also becoming the first to pack
1000 gigabytes into a single drive. But it's not always about finishing
first (ask any woman), the performance has to be there too. Join
HardwareLogic as we throw the 7k1000 into our testbed and see if it
performs as big as it's capacity. Model | 7k1000
| Capacity | 1TB (1000GB)
| Interface | SATA 3.0Gb/s
| Sector Size
| 512 byes
| Disks / Heads
| 5 / 10
| Data Buffer
| 32MB | Rotational Speed
| 7200RPM | Dimensions | 26.1 x 101.6 x 147 (HxWxD) mm
| Weight | 700g | Warranty | 3 years
|
 Bundled
with the 7k1000, Hitachi includes an installation manual, configuration
CD, four screws, and a SATA cable. That's fine and dandy, but when it
comes to hard drives, so long as the essentials are covered, we pay
little attention to the bundle and concern ourselves instead with the
specs.  Hitachi
made waves in the hard drive industry by cramming a full terabyte of
storage into a single drive, giving home theater enthusiasts a reason
to cheer. And it's not just the HTPC crowd that should be excited
either, the desktop warrior knows how to quickly fill a beefy hard
drive to its capacity with applications, games, music collections,
digital pictures, and other digitized data. Having a terabyte to play
with means you can keep that pr0n collection intact, and continue to
add to it.
The
7k1000 doesn't just impress on the capacity front, it sports quite a
few performance goodies too. Hitachi's jumped on the perpendicular
bandwagon, and you can check out Hitachi's Flash animation video on what this means. Seriously, you DON'T want to miss this, and ' you're welcome' for this little gem in advance. There also sits a giant 32MB buffer, double the size of the previous top offerings at 16MB. 
For
benchmarking, we tossed the 7k1000 into our high end testbed equipped
with a quad-core QX6800 processor and the 32-bit version of Windows
Vista Home Premium, our current recommendation for new builds. We
pitted today's capacity champ against one of yesterday's favorites, the
400GB Western Digital WD4000KD. The reason behind this was to measure
what kind of performance gains, if any, can be expected when upgrading
from yesterday's tech to today's big 1TB behemoth. Both drives were
tested with a fresh Windows install and updated chipset drivers. | | WD 400GB (WD4000KD)
| Hitachi 1TB (7k1000)
| Boot Time
| 26 sec
| 20 sec
| Shutdown Time
| 49 sec
| 42 sec
| PCMark05 Overall
| 7851
| 8054
| PCMark05 HDD
| 5291
| 7108
| SiSoft Sandra Drive Index
| 45MB/s
| 62MB/s
| SiSoft Sandra Random Access
| 14ms
| 15ms
| 3DMark06
| 10,047
| 10,054
|
Benchmarking
the Hitachi 1TB against our last generation Western Digital 400GB drive
didn't yield any surprises, with the Hitachi dominating the scores,
save for Sandra's Random Access Time measurement. For the impatient,
booting into Windows saw a 6 second improvement, and shutting down took
7 seconds less. Unlike what we're seeing the flash memory market,
performance continues to improve right along with capacity increases. Section
| Score
| Comment
| | Features | 18/20
| - SATA 3.0Gb/s
- Beefy 32MB buffer
- Full 1TB (1000GB) capacity
- Why not go for the gold with a 10,000RPM instead of 7200RPM?
| | Performance | 19/20 | - Not just big, this drive is fast!
| | Acoustics | 19/20 | - Ran quiet throughout testing
| Warranty and Support
| 18/20
| | Price / Value
| 17/20
| - Currently streets between $350 (OEM) and $380 (Retail)
|
 Our RecommendationThere's no way we could get through a 1TB hard drive review without mentioning that size matters, but equally important to how big is how fast.
When it comes to the Hitachi 7k1000, the answer's very big and smoking
fast. At least comparatively. In today's systems of dual videocards,
quad core processors, and oodles of RAM, the hard drive continues to
present a performance bottleneck, especially when pitted against other
types of storage options. But while the hard drive market in general
desperately needs a breakthrough innovation, smaller strides continue
appear with each new generation, and the 7k1000 is no exception.
Hitachi rounds our their top drive with top level specs, including
perpendicular recording, a generous 32MB buffer, a SATA 3.0Gb/s
interface, and lest we forget to mention it one more time, a full
terabyte of storage. The only real complaint we can muster is why
continue to shy away from a 10,000RPM rotational speed, leaving just
the Western Digital Raptors as the only series to claim such a feat? Rotational
speed aside, there's a lot to like here. Hitachi's 1TB 7k1000 not only
boasts the beefiest capacity available in a single drive configuration,
but enthusiast level performance with noise control suitable for the
HTPC crowd. In other words, the 7k1000 is a drive everyone can love. Other Reviews of NoteIt's
always nice to have more than one opinion on a component before you
spend your hard earned money. For one, we may see something others
missed, or vice versa. As with all reviews published at HardwareLogic,
we'll not only give you our recommendation, but also point out reviews
from some other great sites from around the web. Maximum PCAnandTechExtremeTechTechReport
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