[smartmontools-support] hitachi HDS725050KLA360

[Lorenzo L. <lo...@lu...>]

Hello,
I have a problem with my IBM-HITACHI HDD (*HDS725050KLA360*).
Since you very well know HDDs I hope you can, at least, indicate me how 
to investigate (or what tools to use).
Please spend few minutes for me, if you can.

IN FEW WORDS
(maybe enough to suggest me in what direction I need to investigate):

- I purchased a HDS725050KLA360 HDD (SATA 500GB IBM-Hitachi), plugged it 
on a SATA Bus. After few hours/days of use, the Linear transfert rate 
slow down from approx. 60 MByte/sec to approx. 3 MByte/sec. Apparently 
it does not depend on the BUS (I tried different buses: SATA/IDE and 
SATA/RAID in IDE mode), it does not depend on the cable (I used 
different cables) and it should not depends on the controller (I have 
other three HDD, older than this one, well-working (two 200MByte Maxtor 
and one Hitachi HDS725050KLA360)).
- I opened an RMA and HITACHI sent me a substitution. This new HDD has 
the same problem.
- To revert the right linear transfert rate I have to power-off my PC, 
switch SATA buses with one other disk (maybe to reset the low-rate 
status cachead on the SO or on the MotherBoard?) and power-on the PC.
- Hitachi support (very hard to get an expert support... it seems they 
don't have technicians available to support "hard" tickets) told me it 
is not a "switch to Pio mode" (due to, i.e., read/write errors) because 
Pio mode should run to approx 8 Mbyte/sec, not 3 Mbyte/sec.
- My MB is an Asus P4C800 Deluxe (and it is listed in the HDD 
compatibility matrix) and a SATA controlled compatible with the HDD.

Do you have any suggestion?



MANY MORE DETAILS, in case you can spend a bit more time for me:

-------------------------------

when I install the HDD it works at about 60 MB/sec (the right linear 
transfer rate, I suppose). After a while (sometime a day, sometime few 
days), it switch to about 3 MB/sec. At this point, if I shut-down the 
computer and plug the SATA cable on a different SATA port (I have 4 
differente SATA port on the MB) the HDD works at about 60 MB/sec for a 
while (sometime a day, sometine few days) ... and so on.
NOTE: it does not depend on the cable (I used two different SATA cables) 
and also (as explained above) it does not depend on the SATA port on the 
MB (I plugged the cable to two different SATA ports on the MB). In 
addition, I think it should not depend on the SATA controller, on the 
MB, since I have had (for a couple of year) two different SATA HDD 
plugged to both SATA port without any problem.

-------------------------------

since:
- I turned-off my computer. I switched the SATA2 BUS where the disk was 
plugged with one other SATA2 BUS (I mean: Disk2 with Disk3)
- I turned-on the computer
- Now the disk works at the right linear transfer rate (approx 60 
MByte/sec)

-------------------------------

I read all the following document:

Deskstar 7K500 and Deskstar E7K500 Specification v1.5
http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/CE3F5756C827F35A86256F4F006B8AD4/$file/7K500v1.5.pdf

Deskstar E7K500 Datasheet
http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/C5C895A725AC713E862571D5004E4EDB/$file/Deskstar_E7K500_DS.pdf

Deskstar E7K500 Quick Installation Guide v1.1
http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/F5C823FD14537CC4862571FC0064A6BA/$file/deskstar_E7K500_ig.pdf

Deskstar 7K500 Compatibility Summary v1.0
http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/CEA0F8491B9295F1862570E400716E05/$file/7K500_com.pdf

and no misconfigurations seem to exist.

-------------------------------

low lever format (by the Erase Disk utility from our Drive Fitness Test 
program) just tried, but the problem still exist.
HDD does not seem defective because:
- Erase Disk procedure end successfully
- DFT end succesfully with code 0x00
- Partitioning and Formatting (NTFS partions) the disk in Windows work 
correctly
but the disk still has a linear transfert rate about 3 MByte/sec 
(approx. 20 time less than a normal liner transfert rate: 50-60 MByte/sec)

-------------------------------

I performed a DFT and it not show an error code. The DFT ended with 0x00 
(succesful response), BUT the HDD linear transfert rate is too low 
(about 3 MByte/sec against about 60 MByte/sec of one other IBM-Hitachi 
HDDs I own).

-------------------------------


Thank you very much,
Lorenzo