Hitachi 1TB Deskstar 7K1000

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 is a solid performer, but about 30% slower than the Western Digital RE3 on sustained transfers across the drive. However, it was a top performer in Photoshop tests on the MacBook Pro, showing that the particular workload and hardware involved can lead to very different conclusions.

When seeking, it is noticeably louder than Seagate 1TB models, but on par with the Western Digital RE3. While I didn’t experience it, a reader reports that the Hitachi sometimes has the same noisy behavior after heavy access as the Westen Digital RE 3; see details there.

Raw data

Test mule: MacPro quad-core 3.0GHz
SATA card: Sonnet E4P
Enclosure: FirmTek SeriTek 2eEN4
Driver: SoftRAID 3.6.7
Drive model: 0A35155
Build date: Oct-2008

# single drive
$ disktester run-area-test -i 3 -c 1M -t 1G  HitachiDeskstar
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 9:25:02 PM PT, volume "HitachiDeskstar" (931.2GB)  
---------- Write Details for "HitachiDeskstar" (1GB/1MB, 3 iterations) ---------
Area (929.1GB)    Slowest    Median    Fastest    Average    Range
0%           82.5      83.3       83.4       83.0      0.84
10%           82.5      82.6       83.5       82.9      0.97
20%           82.5      83.2       83.2       82.9      0.74
30%           78.5      78.7       79.4       78.9      0.83
40%           77.2      77.2       77.4       77.3      0.18
50%           70.6      70.7       70.7       70.7      0.07
60%           66.7      66.8       66.9       66.8      0.22
70%           62.8      62.9       63.5       63.1      0.67
80%           55.0      55.5       55.5       55.4      0.54
90%           51.2      51.2       51.6       51.3      0.41
100%           41.4      41.4       41.4       41.4      0.07
---------- Read Details for "HitachiDeskstar" (1GB/1MB, 3 iterations) ----------
Area (929.1GB)    Slowest    Median    Fastest    Average    Range
0%           77.9      81.8       82.1       80.6      4.25
10%           81.7      82.2       82.2       82.0      0.51
20%           81.6      82.1       82.2       82.0      0.61
30%           77.7      78.3       78.3       78.1      0.56
40%           75.8      75.8       76.3       76.0      0.47
50%           70.5      70.5       70.5       70.5      0.00
60%           66.5      66.5       66.5       66.5      0.00
70%           62.2      62.2       62.6       62.3      0.43
80%           54.4      54.4       54.8       54.6      0.36
90%           50.6      50.6       50.9       50.7      0.32
100%           40.9      40.9       41.1       41.0      0.21
------------ Averages for "HitachiDeskstar" (1GB/1MB, 3 iterations) ------------
Area (929.1GB)    Write MB/sec    Read MB/sec
0%             83.0            80.6   
10%             82.9            82.0   
20%             82.9            82.0   
30%             78.9            78.1   
40%             77.3            76.0   
50%             70.7            70.5   
60%             66.8            66.5   
70%             63.1            62.3   
80%             55.4            54.6   
90%             51.3            50.7   
100%             41.4            41.0   
Average write speed across the volume: 68.5MB/sec
Average read speed across the volume: 67.7MB/sec
# 4-drive stripe
$ disktester run-area-test -i 3 -c 1M -t 4G  ht4
======  Saturday, November 15, 2008 9:20:27 AM PT, volume "ht4" (3.64TB)  ======
---------------- Write Details for "ht4" (4GB/1MB, 3 iterations) ---------------
Area (3.63TB)    Slowest    Median    Fastest    Average    Range
0%          331        332       333        332       2.50
10%          331        331       333        332       1.94
20%          331        333       333        332       2.82
30%          314        318       318        317       3.26
40%          306        307       309        307       2.89
50%          286        286       286        286       0.17
60%          270        270       270        270       0.43
70%          252        254       254        253       2.05
80%          221        221       223        222       1.67
90%          205        206       207        206       1.17
100%          188        188       189        188       1.51
---------------- Read Details for "ht4" (4GB/1MB, 3 iterations) ----------------
Area (3.63TB)    Slowest    Median    Fastest    Average    Range
0%          326        327       328        327       2.18
10%          257        288       328        291      71.45
20%          325        326       328        326       2.82
30%          304        313       313        310       8.69
40%          303        305       305        304       2.28
50%          279        279       279        279       0.29
60%          263        264       264        264       0.57
70%          248        249       250        249       1.56
80%          217        217       219        218       1.82
90%          202        202       203        203       1.34
100%          180        187       188        185       7.97
------------------ Averages for "ht4" (4GB/1MB, 3 iterations) ------------------
Area (3.63TB)    Write MB/sec    Read MB/sec
0%             332            327    
10%             332            291    
20%             332            326    
30%             317            310    
40%             307            304    
50%             286            279    
60%             270            264    
70%             253            249    
80%             222            218    
90%             206            203    
100%             188            185    
Average write speed across the volume: 277MB/sec
Average read speed across the volume: 269MB/sec