Hitachi Harddisks Thread (5K3000, 7K3000, 7K2000)

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CrAZy

New Member
Apr 18, 2013
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Russia, St. Petersburg
Or you can just simply register your product on the manufacturer's site and give them a proof of purchase with the corresponding date. The warranty will start from that particular date. I did this for a WD drive when I RMA'd... Don't know about Hitachi.
WD Support ignore my requests. No answer on my letters and problems..so..Hitachi is the best.
 

matt_garman

Active Member
Feb 7, 2011
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Authorized resellers actually do report it. That's why when you buy from Frys or MicroCenter they scan the serial number at checkout. Most on-line retailers do this too (amazon, the egg, etc).
Just as an FYI... I just purchased a Hitachi 5K3000 3TB drive (retail box) from B&H Photo. I checked my warranty online and it gave a 2015 date. I obviously expected a 2016 date. I contacted tech support, and this was their reply:

Our drives come with a three year warranty from the date of purchase. However, the serial numbers warranty period is based on the manufacture date. So if the serial number shows the drives warranty has expired, we would just need the proof of purchase to validate that you bought the drive less than three years ago and we can get the drive replaced under warranty.
So at least in this case there was no retailer feedback process. Sounds painless enough though, we'll see if and when the time comes. :)

Kind of painful though, as I need to keep notes on this drive now. Say it dies within my real warranty period, but past the date the online tool shows. If I forget that it actually has a longer warranty, I might just write it off as loss, when I'm in reality entitled to a replacement under warranty.

Also FWIW, that drive was stamped with a Jul-2012 manufacture date, and said made in Thailand. That's pretty old stock, and I thought these Hitachi drives were made in China?

Anyway, $120 seemed like a good deal to me.
 

cafcwest

Member
Feb 15, 2013
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Richmond, VA
Just as an FYI... I just purchased a Hitachi 5K3000 3TB drive (retail box) from B&H Photo. I checked my warranty online and it gave a 2015 date. I obviously expected a 2016 date. I contacted tech support, and this was their reply:



So at least in this case there was no retailer feedback process. Sounds painless enough though, we'll see if and when the time comes. :)

Kind of painful though, as I need to keep notes on this drive now. Say it dies within my real warranty period, but past the date the online tool shows. If I forget that it actually has a longer warranty, I might just write it off as loss, when I'm in reality entitled to a replacement under warranty.

Also FWIW, that drive was stamped with a Jul-2012 manufacture date, and said made in Thailand. That's pretty old stock, and I thought these Hitachi drives were made in China?

Anyway, $120 seemed like a good deal to me.
It is a pretty decent deal for 2013 pricing. But it'd pain you, as it does me to remember, that I bought 30+ of these right before the flood for less than $90/each.

thanks for the info about the warranties.
 

MyKey

New Member
Aug 5, 2013
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Any firmware updates for HUS153030VLS300 UltraStar 15K300 and HUS156060VLS600 UltraStar 15K600 disk drives ? Mine appear out of warranty.
 

alx

New Member
Nov 1, 2013
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Does anyone have a firmware newer than 580 for Hitachi 7K3000 1.5 TB HDS723015BLA642 0F12114 ?

5C0 / 800 / A10 ?

Thanks in advance.
 

putsli

New Member
Nov 6, 2013
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Hi, anyone have A10 firmware for 3 TB Hitachi 5K3000 hds5c3030ala630?
I will be very grateful if anyone share fw.
 

planetbrian

New Member
Jan 29, 2012
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Needed A10 7k3000 3tb

OK, so I've also flashed a couple of 7K3000 3TB drives to A10. Same result: everything is good, the write access are a bit improved, similarly to the 2 TB drives.
I would like the A10 7k3000 3TB firmware please. How is it working for you so far?

Cheers...Brian
 

kryptex

Member
May 13, 2011
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Does anyone have a firmware newer than 580 for Hitachi 7K3000 1.5 TB HDS723015BLA642 0F12114 ?

5C0 / 800 / A10 ?

Thanks in advance.
Hello,

First of all, a disclaimer: I haven't tried these firmwares myself on the 1.5 TB 7K3000 drive, so be very careful.
I have firmware 5C0 which is supposed to be good for both 2TB and 1.5TB versions.
Then, I have firmware 800 and also the newest, A10 for the 2 TB drive. I don't know if 800 and A10 are also compatible with the 1.5 TB drive.

Use the DOS updater from the 800 package (MNDLBRD.exe) with any of the 3 firmwares (the *.BD files), it should work without problems:
Here you go for the links:
https://mega.co.nz/#!JhFhGIYD!ZvBpqmas1FJigO5RzMVdoydgdPsLhPr2QTXk26xHQss
https://mega.co.nz/#!AskU2Lba!FhcAwgS74EfPNwt67F6bi1xUl9o6XlWgzeSwZJeEqzI
https://mega.co.nz/#!NoNlFQRL!MX1Dm3YI576h8ALjAcWROz8uTtB4DES71Bk8sVFTzWo

Let me know if it works,
Best regards.
 

kryptex

Member
May 13, 2011
117
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Hi, anyone have A10 firmware for 3 TB Hitachi 5K3000 hds5c3030ala630?
I will be very grateful if anyone share fw.
Hi,

I have the A10 firmware for the 3 TB 5K3000 drive, but the DOS updater included (named MKDLBRD.EXE) doesn't work. So you will have to use the HiTest Windows updater from the 800 firmware package, it only works under Windows XP 32 bit.
Here you go for the links:
https://mega.co.nz/#!pgNyQRDb!WTAbtVwR1CdzLDP-iO5Vl2i2aMxmGmr0QwUgtdn04zs
https://mega.co.nz/#!V1dVkaaB!Y-G1-V75x-nfpwxNKBPbV3zpyoUuQoYag5zSUSf0bo4

Keep us updated, it should work for you with the provided HiTest 2.38 under XP 32bit + A10 firmware file (ME0NRA10.BD)
Best regards.
 

fauguy

New Member
Dec 14, 2012
2
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1
FL
I have been using two Hitachi 2TB 7K3000 drives (HDS723020BLA642) since Jan of 2012.
When I got them, they had an older firmware, which I updated to A800.
Since then everything was fine, until last week.
One hard drive started to give SMART errors, then this week the 2nd drive began to do the same time
I have some info about it here:
Is my 2TB Hitachi 7K3000 drive failing? - AnandTech Forums

Today I received the "refurbished" drives, which are the same model (HDS723020BLA642), yet say "Made in China" with the A10 firmware. But my original ones (that are failing) say Made in Thailand.

I don't like the fact that Hitachi send out refurbished drives. Also, even though the original ones were purchased in Jan 2012, their Manufacture date is Sept 2011, which it what the 3-year warranty goes by, meaning it end next year in Sept 2014. When I tried to check the warranty on-line of these refurbished drives, it just says N/A.
Now I'm wondering if I should use them, or maybe get new drives, such as the 2TB Ultrastar 7K4000 that has a 5 year warranty.
 

IAPro

New Member
Oct 30, 2013
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Not sure if anyone has noticed this before but I thought I would share for anyone searching. I bought a HDS723020BLA642 (part #0F12115) with 15,000+ hours on it on eBay. The first thing I do with something like this is do a full sequential read and write of the entire surface several times to see if I can shake out any reallocated/pending sector behavior. What happened with this drive was strange. A substantial number of sectors took a long time to read/write but SMART showed absolutely no pending or reallocated sectors. I did not examine the numbers well enough to give actual percentages, but there was a tapering distribution of sectors taking anywhere from more than 5ms to more than a full second. It was noticeable, and average transfer rate for the entire surface was wildly inconsistent and anywhere from a dismal 80MB/sec to maybe 100MB/sec. This was both via a SAS expander and an LSI SAS card using FreeBSD and directly attached to an ICH9 motherboard chipset using Windows XP and 7, different signal path, OS, everything. This is exactly the type of behavior I would expect with a failing drive and increasing pending/reallocated sectors, but the slow sectors were never in the same locations and I could not get checksum errors in file data.

The drive was running 5C0. I updated to A10 with files found in this thread (MNDLBRD.exe from 7k3000 2TB (0F12115_800_DOS).zip and MN0NBA10.BD from 7k3000 2TB (0F12115_A10_Win).zip) and the problem just disappeared, no sectors take longer than 50ms with only the smallest handful taking over 5ms, like I would expect. Average sequential rate is well over 100MB/sec.

Many thanks to those posting the firmware files.
 
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lpallard

Member
Aug 17, 2013
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Considering the length of the thread and such, this may be the most stupid question I asked so far ;) but here it goes!

Unless its required because of a specific issue with a certain controller or HBA, or if there's a bug causing premature death of a drive (I have in mind the WD greens with head parks), whats the point of upgrading firmwares on hard drives?

Dont you risk running into new problems?

Are the manufacturers actually putting that much development into firmwares? I would imagine a firmware upgrade will bring you so far, until an actual drive upgrade with a newer controller allowing more/better functions...

Mostly out of curiosity and learning... Ive ran misc drives (mainly Hitachi's 5k3000) for 5 years+ with all stock firmwares, no hiccups so far.

Just curious!
 

kryptex

Member
May 13, 2011
117
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18
Newer firmwares do the following:

- correct bugs in the HDD functionality (dropouts, SMART issues, freezes, data corruption ->see the Momentus XT firmware SD25)
- improve performance
- increase compatibility with certain SATA/RAID chipsets, etc
 

lpallard

Member
Aug 17, 2013
276
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kryptex, I guess it make sense... I just did not expect so many bugs but like everything else, these components are getting increasingly complicated..

So in other words, before I move my Hitachi's 5k3000 to my new M5016 controller, I should probably flash their firmwares...