HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 HUS724040ALE640 4TB 7200 RPM RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Enterprise Hard Drive

Pros: Great when it works.

Cons: I’m now getting a SMART error after about a year. When you go to the Hitachi and enter your serial number it tells you that it is not valid. It turns out that they want the last 8 characters and not the complete number given by the SMART info. Why? Just silly and problematic. Support says of course as that is not what is on the label. So they want everyone to take their computers apart just to check the warranty? They could just have the database take the last 8 characters and or put a note about it on the page where you enter in the serial number.

Then the support guy won’t tell me what the SMART error is about saying I must run the WinDFT long scan. He said it would only take a few hours. No it takes like 9-10 on a 4TB drive. Also said that SMART errors don’t mean anything is wrong and that Windows Updates or improper formatting can cause SMART errors. What?

He also so informed me that Hitachi will not cross ship the replacement drive. What?! This is a hard drive not some random piece of equipment. I’ve only had to do this a few times over the years but I have never been told by any manufacture that they will not cross ship. So you are lucky enough to find out the drive is falling before you lose everything while it’s under “Warranty” but you have to find and buy at whatever cost, another 4TB drive to back everything up and then be stuck with another 4TB drive in the end. Really? That’s not much of a warranty and they are really overburdening the customer, just because they don't want to deal with my credit card info. This should be listed somewhere in all product info and the drive should be like $100 with such a poor warranty you will need to buy two.

Pros: large, fast enough. very useful for large files/projects.

Cons: Runs hot. I have few hitachi hdd fail because of overheat, but there's no other brand 4TB yet, so I have to buy another one hitachi 4TB just for simple back-up.

Other Thoughts: hope this drive really will work this time. for $520 it will be a big loss not to mention loss of data.