Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4751 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Hitachi
• Model: HDP725050GLA360
• Released on: 2008-06-04
• Hard Disk: 500unknown-units

Manufacturer's Description
Balanced power and performance for desktop computing;The Deskstar P7K500 hard drive provides an exceptional blend of power efficiency and performance making it an ideal solution for consumer and enterprise power-friendly PCs. Leveraging sixth-generation power management technology as well as power-saving innovations pioneered on Hitachi's popular 2.5-inch line of notebook PC hard drives, this new breed of desktop drive delivers best-in-class power management and thermal emissions to help manufacturers meet energy compliance targets and extend drive life.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Huge, fast and quiet.
Just got this today. A snap at £43.00 (that's about 12 gigs per £1). The install was a breeze - instantly seen by XPsp2, no need for drivers. Installed a full version in about 8 minutes; noticbly faster than previous 7200rpm drives. Its also very quiet. 500g is a lot of space and external reviews rate the 'Deskstar' series: grab one.

No jumper but you can set the speed with ftool
There is no jumper on this drive to set the speed down to 1.5 Gb/s. This isn't usually a problem, controllers that do not support 3.0 Gb/s should negotiate 1.5 Gb/s automatically.

However there are a few buggy chipsets that can't do that: VIA and SIS chipsets VT8237, VT8237R, VT6420, VT6421L, SIS760, SIS964 (see Wikipedia).

If you have one of those then you can still buy this drive if you also have access to a machine without a buggy chipset:

- First put it in the machine with the non-buggy chipset.
- Download Hitachi's 'Feature Tool' program, a.k.a. ftool.
- Reprogram the drive to 1.5 Gb/s using ftool.
- Then reinstall it in the target machine with the buggy chipset.

Hitachi - brown boxed drive
I brought this to replace a failed hard drive and decided to take a chance. I did check first to make sure the cables were compatible with the new drive. My old drive was a Sata 150 and although not Hitachi the connections would work for Sata 300 (this drive). Took the drive out of the box and as expected no instructions were provided. Replaced drive with this one using the fixings and cables from the old drive. My PC(Windows XPsp2) came with a recovery disk so loaded disk and installed without a hitch. The drive is quicker and quieter than the previous drive so for me it was a good buy.