The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Hitachi slips past Fujitsu with speedy 320GB laptop drive

Mike Tree

Personally.... 

Posted Thursday 8th May 2008 20:36 GMT

Happy

I'd rather wait for the Fujitsu

Anonymous Coward

sHitachi 

Posted Thursday 8th May 2008 22:11 GMT

Thumb Down

Yup, I'd wait

PunkTiger

320GB Hitachi DeathStar? 

Posted Thursday 8th May 2008 23:28 GMT

Dead Vulture

Most definitely, I'll wait for the Fujitsu.

Travelstar isn't called the "DeathStar" for naught. I've had far better luck (and reliability) with Fujitsu laptop drives.

Adam

113 quid? 

Posted Thursday 8th May 2008 23:28 GMT

$220 (~£113). ®

Don't you mean $220 (~£220). ®

Stupid retail markups in this country.

James O'Brien

Hitachi vs. Fujitsu 

Posted Thursday 8th May 2008 23:28 GMT

Thumb Down

Which would win?

In my eyes Ill wait till one for the more main stream manufactures gets theirs out. These are both shlt.

Pierre

Let's wait together 

Posted Thursday 8th May 2008 23:28 GMT

Turnip anyone? Or would you have a raddish instead? It might be a bit black though.

Henry Wertz

Deathstar? 

Posted Friday 9th May 2008 00:15 GMT

So, I've really wondered -- has Hitachi cleaned up or shut down the plant that was churning out bad Deathstars? The OLD Deskstars (20GB and down) were fabulous, the later IBM Deskstars were what were so bad. The smartest thing Hitachi could have done is announce publicly they've fixed their problems; without knowing I wouldn't risk it.

Rune Moberg

Fujitsu? I'm not that keen. 

Posted Friday 9th May 2008 08:18 GMT

Stop

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/22/fujitsu_hdd_fiasco_to_end/

Funny how the IBM Deathstar debacle is frozen in people's minds, but the Fujitsu drives with sub-par electronics are already forgotten it seems... Well, I lost a drive back then, and I'm not going to pick Fujitsu over IBM/Hitachi.

That said... Which one will fit inside my MacBook Pro? :)

--

Rune

Martin Norman

RE: Fujitsu? I'm not that keen. 

Posted Friday 9th May 2008 08:57 GMT

I'd agree with Rune on this one. The company I worked with at the time had 30 of those defective Fujitsu HDDs. We had 5 go within a couple of weeks. It was almost impossible to get any money out of Fujitsu at the time. We moved on to Western Didge. Hitachi drives don't seem to be that bad. Usually pretty well spec'ed. That's my 5pence worth.

Anonymous Coward

@PunkTiger 

Posted Friday 9th May 2008 09:47 GMT

Stop

"Travelstar isn't called the "DeathStar" for naught."

Travelstars aren't called Deathstars at all. It was the old (IBM days - around 2000) 3.5" Deskstar drives (the clue is in the 'Desk' part) which were dubbed that name. Specifically, it's actually just 1 model which appeared to be the problem (75GXP) - which was the subject of a Class Action. It was the first drive to use glass platters (rather than aluminium). To bundle Nth generation 2.5" drives released in 2008 against first generation 3.5" drives released in 2000 probably isn't fair.

http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~ken/crash/index.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/10/23/ibm_hit_with_hard_drive/

Nano nano

Death wish ... 

Posted Friday 9th May 2008 11:13 GMT

"Hitachi's drive is gunning for notebook builders ..." - why ? - surely it doesn't want to kill them ?

Mr ChriZ

Hitachii make good drives 

Posted Friday 9th May 2008 12:29 GMT

Gates Horns

The death star issue was resolved at least 7 years ago. Even the later IBM drives were good.

We've had loads of the Hitachi drives, no problems at all.

Has plenty of problems with Fujitsu drives. Wouldn't put my data on a Seagate drive again eugh.

Western Digitals are (were?) good but noisy.

But hey lets carry on using some 7 year old news to slate a company that produces good products

Maryland, USA

Remember, the Samsung 500GB is at hand 

Posted Friday 9th May 2008 12:42 GMT

And it's 9.5mm:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/09/samsungs-500gb-2-5-inch-drive-arrives-alongside-22x-dvd-burner/

Chris C

Why the constant bashing? 

Posted Friday 9th May 2008 16:50 GMT

Why is it that when there's any article about hard drives, you have a load of people bashing the manufacturer or the drive. In this case, it's the "Deathstar" issue which occurred and was resolved many years ago. Do you idiots actually think that a 2008 2.5" SATA II drive has any relation to a 2000 3.5" PATA drive?

And why is it only hard drives that you guys do this for? Why doesn't anybody bash Intel? After all, they had the P3 FDIV bug. They also had the opcode (which I forget, but have written down somewhere) that would lock up your machine when th CPU tried to execute it. That one worked at least up to the P4, even in WinXP.

Visiting the past may be nice in some cases (like reminiscing about old games), but it's illogical to think that current technology is stuck in the past, or to forever bash a company because of past mistakes (especially when the past mistake was made by a different company).

If you avoid every hard drive manufacturer who has produced faulty hard drives at one point in their history, you will find that you are left with none.

PunkTiger

Tidying up 

Posted Friday 9th May 2008 22:50 GMT

Alert

@Chris C: "Why is it that when there's any article about hard drives, you have a load of people bashing the manufacturer or the drive... And why is it only hard drives that you guys do this for?"

Apparently, you haven't seen some of the Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux "discussions" around here. This HD bashing is baby tame by comparison.

@everyone else: And, OK, fine, I got my facts about the "DeathStar" crossed. Mea culpa. My only real complaint about all the TravelStar drives I have (2 6GB and 2 20GB) is that they're all fairly loud; even when they're idling. I stay away from them when I'm searching for replacement drives for that reason. If they've quieted them down (like the Samsung and *shudder* Seagate laptop drives I have... and I have my own misgivings about Seagate in general, but that's not important now), will someone please tell me? I'll be willing to give them a sporting chance.

John J

Re - Tidying Up 

Posted Saturday 10th May 2008 01:38 GMT

Go

PunkTiger I'm sure you're exaggerating the whole "discussion" thing. DesktopBSD/FreeBSD ROCKS...everything else is Shite. ...Oh yeah, harddrives, I have several. They all work.

Francis Boyle

re: Why the constant bashing? 

Posted Sunday 11th May 2008 16:10 GMT

Because this time it's personal. Data, that is. When my video card dies I go out and get a better one. When my hard drive goes, I lose stuff, backups notwithstanding. Consigning people's personal stuff to the great bit bucket in the sky is a good way to generate long standing grievances.