Hitachi Duo Pro 4TB External Hard Drive

[LastApeMan]

@mannyrio

What’s the deal… everything is in metric. Why? O_o

They told everyone in the 80’s when we were in Middle school - everything was going to be metric soon - learn it or fail.

where were you?

[Batman4oz]

I wonder why we get all excited about this Big Box, when I am looking at this teeny tiny Micro SD Card that will probably be saying ‘TB’ instead of ‘MB’ one day soon!
But, I still expect to have All Things Beamed Directly Into My Brain before I die! Then I Really CAN Take It With Me!!
Now That’s Entertainment!

[ehowland50]

@LastApeMan

They told everyone in the 80’s when we were in Middle school - everything was going to be metric soon - learn it or fail.

where were you?

OMG I remember that! Like a bad dream! For me it was about the late seventies. There was some ‘deadline’ that the USA was supposed to switch over or something? Lots of fuss, never happened, never heard of it again. Stupid public schools…

[Batman4oz]

@ehowland50

OMG I remember that! Like a bad dream! For me it was about the late seventies. There was some ‘deadline’ that the USA was supposed to switch over or something? Lots of fuss, never happened, never heard of it again. Stupid public schools…

Oh, but those were The Good Old Days! Now the kids get This Propaganda…- YouTube
and…This Illiterate Garbage…
http://www.flocabulary.com/
Unless We Stop It!!

[theloudestfire]

@MichaelSF

I remember going to a computer flea market of sorts at a Scottish Rite Temple.

There was a guy by the door who had a table set up. He had about 20 used hard disks on the table, that’s all he was selling.

I asked him what and how much they were.

He proudly said of his wares “These are 10 MB hard drives, only $40 each!” (Yes, I said megabyte. LOL.)

I did not buy one.

HAHA!

[Batman4oz]

@ehowland50

My gosh you have some wonderful pictures! I LOVE the grey kitty standing up to (likely) beg for yummies!? Did you get those wonderful pics of a lake from a single camera shot or were they stitched together? I saw one that said “not bad for an iPhone app”, if that picture originated from an iPhone I am impressed (even if from multiple stitched together shots). Iphone 3 or 4? What stiching program (if any)? Very nice stuff! Wanting to not come to the party empty handed… ‘www dot giveawayoftheday dot com’ has a VERY nice offer you might like today. It is a watermark program. You must be savvy, so I will post a ‘nugget’ I found that is great for choice GOTD program offers (they are always free for that day, sometimes lame sometimes superb, like W O O T). Download the item the DAY it comes out (up till 3AM est). Start the install process THAT DAY, pause - don’t continue, while paused SNAG a copy of the temp file for the install program at this location:

C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Temp

Paste this copy while you have paused teh install (it will be deleted as soon as you exit the GOTD installer) into a folder of your choice and copy the ‘text’ readme file that is usually created during the install process (this will have the needed info to register the program). NOW you can install from the clean install file and most will work later (after that day) and NOT be limited by the day long thing. I predict you will like the watermark program today. Seeing your photo collection prompted me to figure this info might be useful to you (if you did not know already). Thanks again!

Wonderful shot of adorable cats! Hope you don’t mind me sharing…Erin and Nessie | This is actually very them. Erin is the cu… | Flickr

[Mescalero]

Quailmann7 wrote:
i remember when 4 gigabytes was a lot…

@MichaelSF

I remember going to a computer flea market of sorts at a Scottish Rite Temple.

There was a guy by the door who had a table set up. He had about 20 used hard disks on the table, that’s all he was selling.

I asked him what and how much they were.

He proudly said of his wares “These are 10 MB hard drives, only $40 each!” (Yes, I said megabyte. LOL.)

I did not buy one.

I remember a guy at the local computer supply store selling me ram and telling me I’d NEVER need more than 4 megabytes of ram. Guess we’re all getting old.

[sweh]

@quantamm

No, CaptainWes is right to ask. With 512 byte sectors and 32-bit LBA, you’re limited to 2.1TB of addressable space. With a 64-bit OS, LBA is extended to 48-bits, which means that you can address hard drives in the petabyte range.

The bit-size of the OS should have no direct impact on the LBA type used.

Prior to LBA48 the LBA size was actually 28bits, leading to 137Gb HD size limits. You need LBA48 support to handle any disk over 137Gb (TiVo hackers will remember that one!). There was no 32bit LBA. So it’s very very likely you’re already using LBA48 drives.

Of course, another issue is the MBR, which is important if you want to use this as a boot drive. In which case, the MBR can only use partitions that are under the 2.1TB limit as the boot partition (I believe).

This is a more valid concern. You may even need to use GPT partitioning on such a large disk - if you have an OS that understands GPT, and a motherboard that can boot from it!

[harleyfatboy]

@justin42

I really have liked the 1TB external I have (looks like this, not the other deal linked) except it seems to run very, very hot. (that said, it’s been running fine for over a year) Does this model have a fan? It sort of looks like it from the picture from the back, but that’s hardly 100%

Also, most external drives’ warranties end if you open the case… since this is 2 drives, how do you recover it if one drive fails (and you’re using mirroring)? Do you recover the data off the surviving drive and send it back, or do they provide a mechanism to just swap out the dead HD?

In most RAID configs, you remove the bad drive and insert a new drive…the controller then knows you’ve inserted a new drive and loads the mirrored data on the new drive. Raid 1 being mirroring

[drdougsteward]

@MichaelSF

I remember going to a computer flea market of sorts at a Scottish Rite Temple.

There was a guy by the door who had a table set up. He had about 20 used hard disks on the table, that’s all he was selling.

I asked him what and how much they were.

He proudly said of his wares “These are 10 MB hard drives, only $40 each!” (Yes, I said megabyte. LOL.)

I did not buy one.

I won’t tell you how much my first 20 Meg hard drive cost me (back in 1986). VEry nice lap tops cost less today.

[mrken30]

@JAKWoot

You are joking, right? This is disk, not RAM…

Maybe this supports ready boost technology?

[bschaeffer8330]

There isn’t a 4TB drive yet, so it’s two 2TB drives, but Hitachi will have one for sale early next year.

[Dud]

Two important questions:

1. How good are Hitachi drives compared to WD or Seagate?

2. This deal equates out to about $65 per TB of space. I understand this is set up as a Raid but how good of a price is that per TB? I paid less than that last year on a WD.

[blubeeblu]

Sounds like a nice deal, however my experiences tells me to be SAFE. Meaning. I had hard drives, and external hard drives which, eventually, all POP’ed so to speak, they simply crashed. My suggestion, is to have your external drives, however PLEASE save your personal information, from pics, docu data, music, vids, or what ever onto disks also. Make a master disk of everything, and then two back-up’s of master disk if u for example are using the 4.O GB disks. I am suggesting 2 backup of a master for the 4GB Disks crash also. My suggestion for Blu-ray disk do 1 master, and 3 backup’s, for if one disk crashes then you will have 2 backup’s and then you can always make a copy from your master to restore a disk that crashed. In the end it’s a LOT OF WORK! However, you will always have lets say, your External Drive info, plus if you use 4.O GB Disk, a Master and 2 Backup’s. Remember this excludes your OS disk that u received from the computer company that u bought your hardware from, which now can be retrieved online. Yes, it is hard work to do with making the Master, Backup’s, with the addition of the External drive, however this is far better than purchasing boxes of Kleenex to wipe your TEARS. In the end, just having the External Drive as backup is not Playing SAFE.

[Glueeater]

At nearly $0.07/gb that’s a hard deal to pass up…

My pockets are shallow though.

[ScottFromWyoming]

@dgbrownnt

I have this drive (bought it for almost twice as much, though). It worked well for a few months, then started making a horrible noise, then started f ailing. Luckily I had it in the raid1 configuration, so it didn’t lose any data, but still not fun.

I’m currently in the process of moving contents onto something more reliable.

Was a decent drive while it worked, though (especially the eSata part).

So you’re saying it worked exactly as promised?

[JAKWoot]

@mrken30

Maybe this supports ready boost technology?

Not a chance.

Edit: Was up late… I just got the sarcasm.

[s2welee]

Guys, RAID is not a backup. Raid is a crutch just in case. If you are relying on your mirrored drives to save you, then you are doing it wrong. This drive would be a part of a backup solution, but not an end all be all. RAID does nothing for accidental file deletions or id10t errors.

I personally have 3 layers of backup. Mozy handles the automatic stuff to the cloud, I backup locally to my NAS device (this Hitachi would stand in for that) and I have all the files on my main computer. The chances that all of this would go TU is pretty slim. Even if the house burns, I have an off site to restore from.

Having said all of that, 4TB would be a nice cog in the backup wheel…

[EwanG]

@blubeeblu

Sounds like a nice deal, however my experiences tells me to be SAFE.

To this and several other folks who have talked about how “unsafe” using this as RAID 0 is…

Some of us need the speed that RAID 0 gives for working with large video files (editing) or doing straight captures from a tethered camera. In those cases there’s a solution that’s every bit as safe as RAID 1 - it’s called buying TWO of these drives.

Just saying.

[Wldczy]

The DirecTv tips & tricks section lists add-on hard drives that are compatible with their units. This one is not listed. Why do you think this will work?