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1 2 NextJuly 8, 2005 by Devon
Cooke
Hard drive technology has stabilized over the past couple of years, with gains
in performance and storage coming incrementally rather than exponentially. As
a result, Hitachi's 400GB Deskstar, released over a year ago, still provides
more storage than most of its competitor's maximum capacity drives. Seagate's recently introduced 3-platter Barracuda 7200.8
is the only other 400GB drive, and even this
is bettered by Hitachi's top-of-the-line 500GB model.
In part, Hitachi's advantage is a result of its willingness or ability to make
a drive with five platters; the areal density of 80GB/disc in the 7K400 is actually lower than
that of many of its competitors, which has gone up to as high as 133GB/disc. However, given the inability or unwillingness of other manufacturers
to produce drives with as many platters, Hitachi is still one of only two choices
for drives of this capacity.
The key question for SPCR, of course, is whether the additional capacity can
be had without paying an acoustic price. The five platter design of the 7K400
does not bode well for the acoustic properties of the drive, although only a
thorough test will tell for sure. A key point of comparison will be how this
drive performs compared to the lower capacity
7K250 that we reviewed not long ago.
OVERVIEW
Unlike some of the other drive samples we've received, the 7K400 showed up
in a large retail box. The box was extremely large, almost the size of a shoebox,
and had no markings to identify the model other than the generic Deskstar name
and logo. Presumably, some kind of sticker is used to identify the drive when
used in a retail setting.
Hitachi shipped us the sample in a large retail box.
The reason for the size of the box is protection: The drive is positioned in
the center of the box surrounded by almost two inches of free space on all sides.
Two large plastic "ends" are used to ensure that the drive stays in
position away from the walls of the box. Short of shipping the drive wrapped
in a wool duvet, this is probably as good as shock-resistant packing gets.
The drive is well protected by an anti-static bag and large shock resistant
"ends".
|
HITACHI GLOBAL STORAGE TECHNOLOGY 7K400 (from
Hitachi's web site)
|
| FEATURE & BRIEF |
COMMENT |
|
400 GB of capacity with either Serial or Parallel ATA interface
|
This drive is all about capacity.
|
|
Rotational Vibration Safeguard
|
Designed
to compensate for seek time lost to drive vibration. |
|
ATA-7 Streaming Feature Set
|
An alternate
transfer mode that trades accuracy for performance in time-critical applications
such as video streaming. |
|
Robust mechanical enhancements
|
This vague
description actually covers several features, which will be described later. |
| Latching SATA
connector |
Improves the
security of the standard SATA connector. |
SPECIFICATIONS
The specifications given are specific to models that we examined. The 400GB
model is the only capacity available in the 7K400 line, although PATA and SATA
variations are available. This makes it quite easy to interpret the specifications:
There are no models of with a different number of platters or heads to confuse
the acoustic or power ratings.
| HDD Model |
Hitachi 7K400 HDS724040KLSA80
|
| Capacity |
400 GB
|
| Cache |
8 MB
|
| Platters |
5
|
| Rotation Speed |
7,200 RPM
|
| Form Factor |
3.5"
|
| Interface |
SATA
|
| Average Seek |
8.5 ms
|
| Start/Stop cycles (at 40°C) |
50,000
|
| Operating Temperature |
5 - 55°C
|
| Power Consumption |
9.6W (Idle)
|
| Acoustics |
3.1 Bels (Idle)
|
| Help support this site, buy the Hitachi Deskstar 7K400 400GB Hard Drive from one of our affiliate retailers! |
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