how good are hitachi's notebook hard drives?

i am looking into upgrading my notebook hard drive, and was wondering how reliable hitachi's were, because it seems thats all newegg/tigerdirect has for 7200rpm and 100gb+.

on my desktop the original hard drive was an IBM deskstar, and it died, and i replaced it with a western digital and it was fine, but i guess western digital doesnt have what im looking for, atleast not on newegg/tigerdirect. someone told me that the IBM deskstar was a rebranded hitachi but i dont know how true that is so..

thanks for the help!

 

Yes Hitachi bought the storage division from IBM. I've used IBM/Hitachi hard disk throughout my life but never had a problem. I heard many horror stories of people drives dieing but it was only for particular desktop series or two. The notebook drives are fine...

 

I'm using Hitachi 80GB 2.5" 7200rpm 8MB HD. It is very good, and not hot and noise i expect. I used 60GB before, then upgrade 80GB one. I feel comfortable to keep using it in the future. I know that Seagate come out 7200rpm already, but the Hitachi one is reliable as well.

 

Hitachi is a good hard drive manufacture. Seagate is also good if you are looking for something else.
Tim

 

As far as hard drives go, I wouldn't worry too much about the brand. All hard drives fail, some after only a few days of use. Brand is really not that much of an issue. I would stick with a name brand like Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, Hitachi. Other than that, people may share their preferences (I happen to get Seagate for no other reason than I like the name and have had good luck with them) and horror stories, but in the end, they are pretty much all the same. If the price/storage is right get it! Good luck!

 

No, he's got it wrong. The IBM Deskstar (aka Deathstar) was manufactured by IBM and were so awful they drove IBM out of the HDD business. They sold their entire HDD division to Hitachi who then released several drives under the Deskstar name.

Generally speaking, the Hitachi shouldn't present any problems.

 

I use Hitachi 80GB 5400rpm, so far so good. no problem found and it's fast. Quiet too.

 

I witnessed some deathstar stories first hand (as in: on my desk and all around the office) but we also use Hitachi 2,5" drives and they are very reliable.

 

um

well this is interesting subject

I would pontificate on it but im sort of stretched for time

I actually had a short job working for seagate in scotts valley ca.

This was definitely when they were on the down side. They were once the worlds largest hard drive manufacturer. Their quality went to crap and they had a horrible name brand image, and had to be a supplier for maxtor, a company that was sort of their spin off orignally.

Asian investors bought seagate in the years since. They reentered the market making only small fast hds. Now, the consumer has totally forgotten that seagate means crap and they think seagate means like ferrari in speed....

I dont believe seagate as a brand manufactures their hds anymore I think they are all made in the far east.

Anyhow blah blah, ibm lost a famous lawsuit and sold their brand name to hitachi. Now, at first the hitachis called desk star, the ones that still said ibm on them, they were still crap. years later, well hitachi just owns the laptop hard drive business. a japanese company, ok stands for a holding company. all this means is, hitachi has bought the rights to sell all the good hard drives lol Im trying to simplify this for you. I mean if fujitsu makes the best hard drive, they will put the hitachi brand on it and sell it.



Ok one last thing. Toshiba make HORRIBLE laptop hds. toshiba doesnt even put them in their own laptops this is true. I had a 40 gb replacement hd, it lasted 370 days, Im not kidding. It died instantly too, not like slowly. weirdest thing ive ever dealt with.

 

My wife's old Compaq (circa 1999) has a Toshiba hard drive and it is still ticking along just fine some 7 years later. My sister-in-law has a toshiba go out after a year. I had a Maxtor last 2 years, a Seagate that has been going 3 now, and the list goes on. My point is manufacturer really is not that important. I may pay $5-10 more for a name I like, but anymore than that I think you would be throwing away money. I am not saying go down to the swap meet and buy the cheapest one Cleatus has to offer, but if you have heard of them before, you can pretty much be assured it will be as good as any hard drive.

 

I have a Hitachi 2.5" in an external case and works great. I'm on my 2nd one actually, the first one died after about 8 months, but the warranty process was super-easy and the new drive is humming right along. I'd buy Hitachi again...like someone else said, hard drives will fail at some point, it's just the nature of the product...to me that's when customer service comes into play, and I had great luck w/ Hitachi.