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Hitachi Hard Drive?

The Hitachi hard drive has proven itself to be a reliable and speedy storage device. Hitachi was already manufacturing its own hard drive when it acquired a 70% stake in the hard drive assets of IBM in December 2002. Then in 2005, IBM sold its remaing 30% stake to Hitachi, and entirely left the hard drive market.

IBM hard disk drives have been around for a very long time. In fact IBM built the first computer with a hard drive in 1956. From then on, IBM played a big part in the hard disk drive (hdd) market. There were a couple of reasons IBM sold its hard drive assets. The first is that IBM wanted to focus more on developing its struggling Microelectronics unit, especially since the its hdd unit had become a money losing operation; the second being that there was a slowdown in the hdd market, which helped contribute to IBM's money problems.

With the addition of IBM hard drives, Hitachi was then envisioned to become the biggest hard drive manufacturer in the world, expecting sales of $7 billion dollars by 2006. While this may not have worked as planned, Hitachi ties for first place as a hard drive manufacturer with Seagate.

IBM had built up a good reputation for quality and speed in its hard drive range. A lot of companies were left playing catch up when IBM first released its 7200 RPM drives. Hitachi continues this legacy, if not in speed then certainly in quality. Early in 2007, Hitachi was the first to release a 1TB drive to the public; leaving even Seagate behind to do some more catch up work.

Over time, usage history has revealed Hitachi's disk drives to be as reliable as all other main brands, if not more so. Not only are Hitachi's drives reliable, they are fast. A recent TechSpot review demonstrated Hitachi's Deskstar 7K1000 1TB drive to be incredibly fast. Despite what its ponderous size may suggest, it matched Western Digital's Raptor 150 GB in load time speed.  While the Deskstar was slightly slower in average read/write speed, it is excusable since the Deskstar offers six and a half times more storage capacity for a little under twice the price. All this to say, the fact that Hitachi's hard disk drives tend to cost less than the equivalent from Seagate or Western Digital, by no means is an indicator that a Hitachi hard drive is of an inferior quality.

So, if you’re looking to buy a 1TB 3.5 in. hdd, what kind should you get? There are three main brands: Hitachi, Seagate, and Western Digital. All three now offer 1 TB drives. However, for equivalent or superior capacity, RPM, buffer size, transfer rate, length of warranty, etc., Hitachi nearly always offers a significantly better price. Go ahead, try one, whether you want an 80 GB, a 1 TB, or anything in between, Hitachi has it!

Here is just a small sample of Hitachi hard drives available:

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