Hitachi 7K200 unreliable?

Clarification: This Poll is about the Hitachi 7K200 which is a 200GB 2.5" laptop hard drive running at 7200 RPM. It's not about any other hard drives.

Hi,

I just had a 7K200 die on me. Unlike previous hard drive deaths that I have experienced, this was a total and utter data loss. The drive was not even recognized by either Mac or PC, SpinRite, Hard Disk Restore, and various other higher level data restore tools were unable to restore anything. SpinRite reported pretty much 99% of the sectors damaged and was able to restore many of them, but it took so long doing the entire HD, or even a significant portion of it, would have taken years.

It's still under warranty of course but I am somewhat reluctant to trust my data to this drive again.

What are your experiences with the 7K200?

Thanks!

PS: I did cast the first vote above, so keep that in mind when reading the results. Also the percentages will be pretty meaningless - The absolute numbers will be much more interesting.

 

I have 3 of them in my notebook. In a RAID5 config. Had them for about 5 months now with no problems.

Edit: You had the 120GB model? Not the 7k200's? I have 3 of the 200gb models, just for clarification.

 

7k200's have not been out for a year. Please be careful when your tossing things like that around.

 

Correct.

However, the thermal spec is indeed 55 degrees, and I have suspected a death by overheating myself for a few reasons:
A - The MacBook Pro gets hot sometimes
B - I live in a hot country
C - I did not stick the little disc on top of the 7K200 when installing. There was a little metal disc on the stock drive which would make contact with the aluminium top case and perhaps cool the drive.

However at the time of HD death, the fans were not running so the MBP was not unusually hot.

Maybe Eurocom can tell us what kind of HD he's running, since the 7K200 have not been around 1 year...

 

The 7K200's dont get that hot, they have very low power consumption. I have 2 200Gb drives in my Voodoo laptop, for about 6 months and no issues. You probably got a fault drive. Thailand does not have too strict of quality control standards, but thats what you get when humans are cheap idiots and buy electronics which are not made good. Then again, the only harddrives I consider good are Micropolis and Digital drives, as they are made in Greece and Germany respectively. Thats why those companies dont exist anymore because they were so damn expensive.
The main point is, nothing is made like it used to. That is why we have faulty products. Quality control is expensive, and humans always buy the cheaper things. COmpanies understand peoples stupidity, and cut quality control in order to save money and the consumer money. The money you save all comes back in the negative externalities associated with the headaches caused by faulty goods.

Hitachi makes good drives none the less, so you should just rma it.

K-TRON

 

7K200 is a 200 GB (200 from 7K200) 7200 RPM (7K from 7K200) 2.5" disk from Hitachi, It cannot be a 120GB...

 

FWIW, my new 160GB 7200rpm Fujitsu does not run all that hot.

I'm not so sure the heat and power consumption are that out of whack on these newer 7200rpm drives.

Hard drives are physical, and it just sounds like you got a bum one.

 

I've had my Hitachi 7K200 for a couple of months and no problems so far (crossing fingers!)

 

Ok after trying for about 1 month to save my data from the old drive, I instead reconstructed everything from external sources. The only thing I had really lost were some work log files - those were important, but I could reconstruct most of it from emails and CVS logs (e.g. what was I doing on this particular day).

Gonna RMA the drive and give the 7K200 another chance. The stock drive is just sooooooo slow in comparison, it's not even funny

 

7K200 is a series of HD, not only 200GB,http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/A198FEF5A3B22F08862572D400656432/$file/7K200DS.pdf
Key Features
Size: 2.5 inches
Capacities: 200 GB
160 GB
120 GB
100 GB
80 GB
Speed: 7,200 RPM
Interfaces: SATA 1.5 GB/s
SATA 3 GB/s
Seek Time: 10 ms

 

newegg has two similar cases out of 84 reviewers.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...aryType=0&Pagesize=10&SelectedRating=-1&Page=