Hitachi was a manufacturer of external hard drives, solid-state drives, and hard disk drives. The company HGST (Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) was initially a subsidiary of Hitachi. It was formed through the acquisition of IBM’s disk drive business, by Western Digital in 2012. Up until October 2015, it was required to operate autonomously due to conditions imposed by Chinese regulators. By 2018, the brand was discontinued, with the rest of its products marketed under the Western Digital brand. Hitachi’s hard drives were a favorite among people with large businesses and home storage systems. This article reviews the Hitachi 500GB, 1TB 3.5, and 2TB external hard drives. Later in the article, we will review the Hitachi worm drive saw as well.
A hard disk drive is a data storage device that uses magnetic storage to store and retrieve information using one or more rigid rapidly rotating disks coated with magnetic material. The platters are paired with magnetic heads, usually arranged on a moving actuator arm that reads and writes data to the platter surfaces. Data is accessed randomly, this means that individual blocks of data can be stored or retrieved in any order and not only sequentially. Hard disk drives are a type of non-volatile storage that retains stored data when powered off. The common form factors of HDDs are 3.5 inches for Desktop computers and 2.5 inches for laptops. HDDs connect to systems using standard interface cables such as PATA, SATA, USB, or SAS (serial attached SCSI). PATA refers to Parallel ATA while SATA is Serial ATA.
HDD was introduced by IBM in 1956 and then in the 1960s it became used mainly used by general-purpose computers. More than 200 companies have produced HDDs historically, but the most common units are manufactured by Toshiba, Seagate, and Western Digital (affiliated with HGST).
HGST was founded on the 6th of January, 2003. It was a merger of IBM’s hard disk drive company and Hitachi. An estimated $2.05 billion was paid to IBM for Hitachi’s hard disk drive business. Western Digital bought HGST for $3.9 billion on the 8th of March, 2012. China’s Ministry of Commerce cited antitrust concerns over reasons to require HGST to operate independently from Western Digital. This restricted integration between the operations of both companies. Also as part of the deal, Western Digital traded assets with Toshiba. Toshiba received the production of 3.5 inch hard drives produced in China, in exchange for a Toshiba factory in Thailand. Later in October 2015, the Ministry of Commerce in China reissued a decision to allow Western Digital to begin integrating its operations into HGST’s main business. HGST continued to operate under these conditions with its product lines and development until 2018, when Western Digital announced the ending of the HGST brand.
Some of the products in the hard drives range include UltraStar, DeskStar, TravelStar, EnduraStar, and CinemaStar. In November 2013, a 6TB capacity drive, filled with helium, was announced by HGST. In September of the next year, the company put out a 10TB helium drive. Shingled magnetic recording was used to improve the density of this 10TB helium drive.
Hitachi 500 GB 2.5 external hard drive review
The Hitachi 500 GB 2.5 SATA hard disk drive is a mechanical hard disk that can be found on Amazon for $33.99. It has a Serial ATA disk interface and is mostly for personal use. The hard drive uses SATA connectivity Technology and is 2.5 inches in size. The cache size is 8MB and it weighs 0.22 pounds. This hard drive offers the capacity to hold your games, music, videos, data files, photos, and much more. You can experience fast data transfers with this interface. Hitachi’s Truetrack technology provides accuracy in high shock or vibration environments. With its 5400 RPM spin speed and 8MD cache size, you are sure to enjoy a smooth and steady operation.
Hitachi 1 TB 3.5 external hard drive review
The Hitachi 1TB 3.5 external hard drive is also referred to as the “Easy Hard Drive”. Ths hard drive is packed into a small and simple external USB storage device. It has a single-touch backup capability and it performs quite well. You cannot find this anywhere online if you want to purchase this. It was one of the fastest hard drives over a USB connection. The main benefits include low price, fast performance and includes backup software. The cache speed is 32Mb with a drive speed of 7200RPM. It is compatible with Windows 2000/XP/Vista and macOS. On Amazon, it has a rating of 3.4 out of 5.
Hitachi 2 TB drive review
The Hitachi 2TB drive has a stark black plastic enclosure with a series of gaps along the sides. The gaps serve as dual-duty air vents that allow the drive to be mounted vertically with the stand. When powered up, the Hitachi logo lights up and it also serves as an ad-hoc activity monitor. It has the same software load as Hitachi’s SimpleTouch and SimpleDrive models. It is formatted in FAT32 for Windows and macOS compatibility and ArcSoft will install Ask.com on your browser by default, except you tell it not to. Users noticed that it is a noisy drive as vibrations are carried through the case when the drive is working. A limiting factor is the speed of the connection. The drive transferred a 622MB folder at a write speed of 16.9MB/s when tested. The write speed was a little quicker at 27.3MB/s but that is not particularly fast. The hard drive was not a good contender if you have large files to move around.
HDDs have improved over time. It started with 3.7 megabytes to 14 TB in capacity. Its physical volume started at 68 cubic feet and was reduced to 2.1 cubic inches. In terms of weight, HDDs used to weigh 2000 pounds and now they weigh as much as 2.2 ounces. The average lifespan used to be approximately 2000 hours but now they live as long as 2,500,000 hours.
Hitachi worm drive saw – a review
What is a worm drive? Worm drives are saws that have a motor attached at the rear, which makes this saw longer and heavier than the circular saw. It is very powerful with two gears each at 90 degrees. The engine rotates at about 4500RPM. The differences between a regular circular saw and a worm drive include the blade orientation, RPMs, torque, and weight. Worm drives have blades on the left side while other drive saws have blades on the right. The position of the blades gives better sight-line visibility. Because of the way worm drives are made, they have a lower spinning rate than regular saws. Regular circular saws have an RPM of 6000 or higher while worm drives have a maximum RPM of 4500. However, worm drives are more durable and powerful. This is because they have larger teeth compared to regular circular saws – having larger teeth means more loading capacity. Worm drives are heavier than regular circular saws. The lighter the saw the easier it is to maneuver and create complicated cuts.
In this section, we will review the Hitachi C7WDM worm drive saw. It comes with a potent 15 amp motor that generates 5000 no-load rotations per minute; the power generated by the motor is so forceful that it speedily and conveniently handles the toughest cutting tasks. It also comes in an ergonomic design to make it easy to use. It is lightweight yet comes in a sturdy build and that ensures you get professional results that will last a long time. The Hitachi C7WDM has a steel bevel and fine-tuning depth levers that allow you to raise its strength for a real-world application. These levers are rugged enough to withstand any pressure that comes. The depth adjustment levers are structured with durable steel which makes the tool resilient for any hard industrial tasks. Its worm drive gears give the machine a dramatic torque that allows it to cut through lumber easily. It also comes with a soft comfortable clutch and non-slip grip that minimizes vibrations. While this tool is slightly heavy it is well worth it due to the value of the durable materials used for the construction of the saw.