I picked up 6x of the Hitachi 4tb 7200rpm NAS drives (H3IKNAS40003272SN) the other day for $159 each. These are the first 4tb drives I've used. I have 20+ 2tb Samsung drives in my main server and have used a bunch of 3tb Red drives in the past. This seemed like a decent deal and I figured that perhaps the 7200rpm vs 5900rpm on the Red drives might give a nice performance improvement. I have begun formatting 3x of them and wow are they running hot! They're pretty quiet and I don't feel a lot of vibration. The event logs are clear so I'm pretty sure they're operating normally but in my 78 degree office they're running at 116 degrees with a 120mm fan blowing over them and spaced about 3/8" apart in the case. Anyone else have experience with these drives? Do those temps seem normal? I was planning to run 4x in an HP N40L Microserver at a friend's house but I'm a bit concerned that the heat might pose an issue. Feedback as always is appreciated.
Hitachi 4tb NAS Drives
- Thread starter coolrunnings82
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What's 116F in centigrade? 
My Deskstar NAS drives run about 44-48C, where WD Reds and Seagate Desktop.15 run at 33C in the same machine (20C ambient). They're 7200rpm drives, they're fine to run at higher temp.
My Deskstar NAS drives run about 44-48C, where WD Reds and Seagate Desktop.15 run at 33C in the same machine (20C ambient). They're 7200rpm drives, they're fine to run at higher temp.
I don't have these exact drives but I do have 9 x 4TB Hitachi 7,200 RPM Deskstars in my server. Some of them I've been running almost two years and some are coming up on a year old.
They range in temperature between 36c and 40c in my server. I have 3 x 120mm fans behind the disks pulling in cool air across the disks. Hope this helps.
They range in temperature between 36c and 40c in my server. I have 3 x 120mm fans behind the disks pulling in cool air across the disks. Hope this helps.
Old trickWhat's 116F in centigrade?
Easy way to convert (roughly)
Centigrade to Fahrenheit = simply double the number and add 30
Eg
15c
Doubled = 30
Add 30 = 60
15c = roughly 60F
real =59F
Or, to work backwards using this formula (116-30)/2=43C. The actual number is 46.67C, so as Stanza said, it is rough, but in the ballpark.Old trick
Easy way to convert (roughly)
Centigrade to Fahrenheit = simply double the number and add 30
Eg
15c
Doubled = 30
Add 30 = 60
15c = roughly 60F
real =59F
Out of my (4) 4TB Hitachi 7,200 RPM drives, none run that hot (from my home setup). They typically max out around 39-40C. This is in my basement with all of them sitting behind 120mm fans. They are significantly hotter than my 5,400 RPM drives.
I got to thinking about the fan in my bench computer and sure enough it was a low-flow Coolermaster fan. No wonder those things were getting so hot! I dropped in a GentleTyphoon and now we're talking 91 F. MUCH better! I mostly deal with 5400rpm style drives when the capacity is getting above 2tb so the temperature difference was a bit alarming. I will have to think twice before I put those drives in my SuperMicro 24 bay case. I modded it with 120mm fans to keep from losing my sanity from the noise but that'll only hold up for cooler running drives.
It was a 24 hour sale. Get on NewEgg's mailing list and they email you when the prices hit that point. They limit you to a certain quantity though. I got my dad to grab 3x for me so I got 6x of them. Here's to hoping those work out well! I have had crap luck with Hitachi in the past so I'm hoping this changes that experience.
Ah, thanks for the update! I subscribe to that mailing, but sometimes it gets filtered out....
I'm sure we all have manufacturers that we like/don't like. I had a really bad experience with WD drives in a huge install of HP machines several years ago (as a reseller/installer) so I tend to stick with Hitachi (even tho that is now WD) and Seagate.
I'm sure we all have manufacturers that we like/don't like. I had a really bad experience with WD drives in a huge install of HP machines several years ago (as a reseller/installer) so I tend to stick with Hitachi (even tho that is now WD) and Seagate.
Which series of WD drives did you have a bad experience with, if you don't mind my asking? My Hitachi experiences stemmed from issues with 15x 2tb Deskstar drives I picked up a few years back. One month in, 4 failed and killed a couple RAID 5 arrays I had going. In hindsight it was probably crappy handling of the OEM drives that killed them.
I've had decent luck with the 1tb WD Black Edition and 500gb RE3 and RE4 series drives so far. Seagates have been pretty poor in the desktop arena for a while now and the Toshiba laptop drives -well don't get me started on those POS drives...
Ever had to deal with the manufacturers' RMA systems? WD has been pretty solid for me. Quick turn around time and zero hassle. Seagate is about 2-3 times slower. Haven't dealt with Hitachi or Samsung yet though. I'm curious if Hitachi's RMAs are handled through the same system as WD's or if they're still separate. Anyone know?
I've had decent luck with the 1tb WD Black Edition and 500gb RE3 and RE4 series drives so far. Seagates have been pretty poor in the desktop arena for a while now and the Toshiba laptop drives -well don't get me started on those POS drives...
Ever had to deal with the manufacturers' RMA systems? WD has been pretty solid for me. Quick turn around time and zero hassle. Seagate is about 2-3 times slower. Haven't dealt with Hitachi or Samsung yet though. I'm curious if Hitachi's RMAs are handled through the same system as WD's or if they're still separate. Anyone know?
I love WD's return policies, nice and fast. I've had bad luck with the WD 2TB RE drives (2002 model) as well as my peers. We've had to return ~50 of them after 3 years. Fine I guess for the life... they replaced them with the 2003 models that worked better. We've had bad luck with desktop Seagates, especially the 1.5TB. Very very bad batch.
Around 1998-1999 the company I worked for did a large install of HP workstations and a couple servers for an architectural firm. After a few weeks of use, the WD drives started developing lots of bad sectors, and failing. At first it was just a couple, and we just replaced them as normal warranty issues. Then a few a day were failing. HP finally came clean and admitted there was a widespread problem with a certain batch of drive used in those workstations. We replaced dozens of hard drives in those workstations, and keeping the customer happy was a real challenge. Fortunately the servers had enterprise Seagate SCSI drives, and those lasted years. About the same time I had two WD drives in a personal system that both failed within a month of each other, both had a dramatic head crash. Upon opening the drives, there was a pile of dust in each one and scores on the disk platters where the heads ate into them. (After the failures from the workstation drives, I was not about to trust warranty replacements from WD at the time.) Unfortunately I do not remember the models of the drives, just that they were 3.5" IDE (not enterprise drives but supposed to be 'workstation class' what ever that meant at the time).
As anyone who has been working in this business for a long time, I'm sure we all have had a really bad time with one product or another, and swear off them. I'm sure it was just a fluke, and all manufactures have a bad run once in a while. What one does remember is how it was handled, and WD (and HP as well) tried to cover it up while throwing us under the bus.
I am sure all the current companies making/selling drives make a solid product. They would not be around for long if they had to replace every drive they sold.
Not trying to incite a HD religious war, but just to explain why I get a nervous twitch whenever I look at a WD drive to buy.
WOW, it's 2023 already? How time flies!
No, as I said in my post, I'm sure they are fine drives, just as all the big manufacturers are reliable. Seagate has certainly had some bad runs of drives and I'm sure a lot of people had negative experiences with the IBM 'DeathStars' which Hitachi later bought.
I was not saying that no one should buy WD. I was replying to a question that was asked.
Are you saying you have never had a bad experience with any product (tech or otherwise) that made you think twice before using it again?
Does not matter if it was 15 years ago or 25 years ago.
Apart from OCZ SSDs, I've not had many issues with anything. Apart from the old Fujitsu 4.5GB drives with the exploding controllers, but they're long gone.