2TB Hitachi HDD showing as 1TB

I have recently bought a bunch of enterprise-used Hitachi 2TB drives. They all work fine, and have typical numbers present in S.M.A.R.T., which is around 30 power-ons and 45.000 hours spinning. This is how they normally show up:

Disk showing it's correct size of 2TB:

Disk showing it's correct size of 2TB

But here comes the kick: one of the bunch is odd, as it only shows 1TB:

Another disk of the same series showing incorrect size of 1TB

This particular drive has a sticker that says 2TB, it's from the same series as the other drives. Notice that the name of the drive also doesn't contain the word HITACHI and Transfer Mode is detected as only SATA 300. BIOS also sees it as 1TB. The drive behaves normally otherwise.

Why is this and what can be done about it? Is there a firmware update that needs to be done for the drives?

masiton

Posted 2019-11-21T10:46:44.323

Reputation: 17

1Where did you bought it? I would suggest to return this specific drive. You can also try booting a LiveCD and check the disk with GParted. – CaldeiraG – 2019-11-21T11:26:25.357

A drive may appear smaller because of HPA. I don't know the tool you used. Maybe it would have told you this is the case, maybe not. HPA doesn't explain other differences, still I think you should investigate this subject, if only to rule it out.

– Kamil Maciorowski – 2019-11-21T11:32:43.530

That 1TB drive is indeed 2TB so something is odd. Your 2TB drive however has a different model and looks like it's a newer one (7230 vs 7220 and SATA 3 vs SATA 2).

– CaldeiraG – 2019-11-21T11:32:44.110

Moderators keep deleting my comments, so I can't answer unfortunately. Also the question itself is moderated, so it no longer asks the question I need answering. Sorry everyone. – masiton – 2019-11-30T19:32:24.207

Answers

These are enterprise disks you bought second hand. They were probably used in a NAS device.
It isn't unheard of that NAS vendors use custom firmware in these drives to optimize performance/reliability for a specific use-case.
One of the things they may do is to "down-size" a drive to a smaller capacity.
This mainly happens when they need to deliver replacement drives, but the original disks are not longer available. So they take newer drives with similar specs and modify the firmware so it looks (to the NAS) like the other drives.
E.g. NetApp and Dell/EMC do this often. I've got a NetApp NAS at the office with originally all Hitachi drives, but later replacements disks are Seagate and Toshiba. To the NAS they all appear the be the same model of disk.

I would strongly recommend to see if you can flash all of them (also the good ones) back to the original Hitachi firmware. This might restore the capacity on the 1 TB drive and, for all drives, get rid of any special customalizations that may be detrimental to normal operation of the drives.

Tonny

Posted 2019-11-21T10:46:44.323

Reputation: 19 919

Thanks! Is there any tool that would allow me to flash the firmware? I tried looking, but I can’t find any sources for Hitachi firmwares, or tools to upload them into the drives. – masiton – 2019-11-21T21:21:27.947

@masiton A flashtool is usually provided together with the firmware. In some cases the drive diagnostics software is also capable of updating firmware. In any case you need to get them from Hitachi. If there is nothing on their website try tech-support directly. I found their tech-support very helpful in the past, but admittedly it has been over 4 years ago I last dealt with them. Things may have changed. – Tonny – 2019-11-21T21:46:18.300