Japan

Hitachi

Hitachi prints the mechanism and no duty figure at all

Two Hitachi drives, one range name

A four-terabyte drive at 7200 rpm on the desktop shelf, and a four-terabyte drive at 5700 rpm, declared refurbished, on the enclosure shelf. The same range name covers both, at two different speeds.

What is published

Capacity, form factor, spindle speed, cache and SATA at 6 Gb/s on both, and a population statistic of 800,000 hours on the refurbished one. There is no marketing on either page, which is refreshing for as long as the figures last.

What is not

Neither publishes a workload rating, a recording method or any annual duty figure, and the desktop listing’s single bullet repeats its title word for word. The refurbished drive states no operating hours and no warranty term, which asks a buyer to accept two unknowns at once.

Every Hitachi unit reviewed here

Internal hard drives

Hitachi MegaScale DC 4 TB at 7200 rpm, a title printed twice

4 TB · 3.5-inch · 7200 rpm · 64 MB cache · SATA 6 Gb/s · one bullet, which repeats the title · no duty figure of any kind

A four-terabyte drive whose single bullet reprints its title word for word, publishing every mechanical figure and not one figure about what the drive is specified to withstand.

Best for: A bulk volume in a desktop machine where the drive will not be pushed hard, bought by someone comparing on figures alone and getting the rest from the datasheet.

≈ 130 €

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NAS hard drives

Hitachi MegaScale DC 4 TB, refurbished, with a stated MTBF and no warranty term

4 TB · 5700 rpm · 64 MB cache · SATA 6 Gb/s · 800,000 hours MTBF · refurbished with no operating hours · recording method not published

A refurbished four-terabyte drive that publishes a rotational speed, a cache figure and an MTBF, and that names neither its recording method nor any warranty term.

Best for: A bulk volume in a multi-drive enclosure where the workload is light and steady, bought by someone who has already decided how they will handle a failure.

≈ 130 €

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Every price named in a summary was read on the date that review carries. What a shop asks today is shown beside the product, and it moves.