500GB 7200RPM Mobile Harddisk is now available...

Seagate Momentus 7200.4 series harddrive with 500GB capacity, 7200rpm speed and 16MB cache is available in newegg for $139.99 + free shipping...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148374


ps: I had to post here since the other thread became unnecessarily long and might not be followed by everyone...


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wow that is cheaper than I expected.
I wonder how it will perform.
WD and hitachi will have theirs out pretty soon, so let the competition begin

K-TRON

 

YESSSSSSSSSSSs.

someone please review this.

 

All I had to do was wait another week and I could've gotten this instead of the WD 320gb.

 

I wonder why they never sell the ASG version in stores, i want free fall protection!

 

Hopefully i can see a 7k500......

 

Free fall protection is just a gimmick. By the time you drop your laptop, it's already too late. Besides, would you trust your hd if you already drop it even if it doesn't show obvious sign of damage?

 

well it cant hurt to have it, at least lets you transfer data off the HD

Cant wait to see some reviews on this to see if its worth buying.

 

Free Fall Sensor locks your head so ti doesn't damage your platters when you drop it, or your head for that matter. Thus, you can extract information from yoru HD after the fall. Comparatively, when you drop your computer without it, your head will clank against the platter and thus that part of the data will not be recoverable.

 

Finally!! My ultimate plan: 500GB 7200rpm RAID 0; it's 1TB time!!

Oh yeah right.... newegg doesn't ship internationally... Looks like I gotta wait a little longer still.

 

Phooey. After seeing Seagate's recent fiasco with their desktop 1TB and 1.5TB drives' firmwares, I don't think I want to go with a seagate drive. I guess I'm gonna have to wait a few weeks until WD releases theirs.

 

Seagate notebook drives have always been solid.

I am very happy with my Seagate Momentus drives.

and get ready for the 750GB 5400rpm 2.5" .... its almost out.

that would mean if you stick three of those 750GB drives into the Clevo D901C...
... it would have 2.25TB of storage ... drool ...

 

and that would be an extremely foolish thing to do.

 

The desktop Seagate Barracuda's have always been solid too. they just up and died out of the blue.

750GB? daaaang that's a lot of space. I might wait for a 7200rpm 750GB drive

 

woowww 500GB wooo got technology + laptops

 

Are WDs generally more preferred over Seagate drives? That's the impression I get. Some people say that all 3 brands (Hitachi included) are roughly the same but I feel like the consensus is generally more in favor of WD for some reason.

 

my dad works for WD =D

 

From what I understand, a buyer generally wants a drive from one of those three. It's kinda like the Coke vs Pepsi debate or more likely rock paper siscors. Which company makes " the fastest " drive changes every generation. Hitachi's 7K200 was the undisputed champ of 2 years ago. Then the current generation launched and the WD 320 Black kicked everyone's butt, with the Seagate 7200.3 being Dr. Jekel/Mr. Hyde when comparing benchmarks to real life performance. Course the Seagate also has unbelievably good power efficency. So the Hitachi 7K320 was the odd man out. I also think the Hitachi suffered from early reports of bad vibration and noise. Some laptops just are able to tolerate vibration better than others, so I have to wonder how much early reports dogged it. The 7K320 has been priced accordingly as the "best bang for the buck" (ie the current rebate takes it down to $70). Really the 3 companies are the Big Three.

General characteristics: WD run fast and silent but hot, Hitachi runs louder than WD but coolest, Seagate runs loud but average temp and the most power efficient. The performance crown goes back and forth. [prepares for all the arguments why I'm wrong]

Fugitsu is a nice budget option, but they dont have performance to compare to the big three (though they have may have been the first to launch a 320GB 7200 rpm drive). Samsung is interesting sometimes, ie making the fastest 2.5 PATA drive on record or the 1st 500GB 5400rpm drive, but they are generally not competative with the big 3.. Toshiba just makes drives that run too slow and hot.

It will be interesting to compare the Seagate 7200.4 to what WD and Hitachi launch to compete with it. We all win, as long as we cna afford it.

 

ill have a pair early next week ill let you know how they are compared to the 5400rpm 500gb wd's

 

Sweet, thanks. I'm eagerly waiting for an HD Tune bench.

 

im wondering how the platters are set up on this one. i cant seem to find out. i assume 2 250gb platters but not totally sure. maybe i missed it on the web site

 

In for one, should be a good replacement for the 5400 160gb hitachi my BF laptop came with.

 

I believe it is indeed 2 250GB platters. That was the whole point of these newer drives - well, that and the 7200RPM.

 

yeah i think it is.. at least i hope so..

hope it will be quieter than my wd's are. i simply cant stand all the ticking especially with 2 of them in there

 

Wrong!
The sensor reacts in Milli of second, by the time the laptop hits the floor, the head has already been locked.

PS: I think I will pick up one as soon as I get my paycheck

 

The drive only detects free fall event if it is greater than 8 inches. So, if you drop your notebook 5 inch high, the head won't be locked.

Besides, it won't matter if the head is locked or not. The distance between the head and the platter is a tiny hair that an impact force would damage the drive.
And if it's not the head or the platter, some other components would fail from the impact.

I have never seen people testing a drive by dropping it from a distance and comparing the result with another drive without free fall sensor. If one can show, through reproducible experiment, that the drive with free fall sensor is more reliable than another identical drive without free fall sensor, then I would buy Seagate selling gimmick.

Don't delay your purchase just because the drive you want to buy doesn't have free fall sensor. Just buy whichever is the cheapest.

 

I have a Thinkpad with free fall sensor that works pretty much the same way, and I have dropped it more than once, so I can vouch for it. However I don't work for Seagate so I don't care if you want to buy it or not, nor do I even wanna bother showing it to you.

 

The price difference is only about $10 in .au.

A fall of only 5" wont have gained enough velocity to do much damage, either.

Many laptops have free-fall built in (Sonys, in particular) so I dont think its too gimmicky.

The unit I have is the ASG version. One thing that is interesting its that its practically silent when the laptop is still, but gets fairly vocal on seeks when the laptop is moved at all, not just a pretend drop.

 

My older drive that doesn't have free fall sensor still works after a fall. My newer one with the sensor died after a similar fall. One can not attribute the survivability of the drive based on the sensor unless it is done in controlled experiment by an independent agent.

 

Here is the user's guide from Dell:

https://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/P202027/specs.htm


"Number of disks 2 (500 GB models)
Read/write heads 4 (500 GB models)"

 

What?

If it's locked, the head isn't a tiny hair from the platter. And if it's not locked then it's a tiny hair from the platter! So how can it not matter!?

 

Free Fall Sensor is not there to make sure your hard drive does not die, it makes sure your data isn't damaged when it does break. I think you got to realize that a fall can break the head, sure, these heads are very sensitive. There is nothing in the world that can stop that. However, free fall sensors lock the head to its default position right when it senses an imbalance while without it the head will still be spinning on the harddrive. Either way, there is a chance that head will just get destroyed from the shock, but at least the shock won't destroy your platters.

Too many misconceptions.

 

From DELL's data sheet about the drive that someone posted earlier

Operating - no data loss 350 Gs @ 2 msec duration
Nonoperating - no data loss 800 Gs @ 2 msec duration

This clearly shows that the data loss is a completely different story than the operation of the disk. The free fall sensor, to my understanding is primarly there in order to assure that data will not be lost, and hopefully the drive will continue working.

What I never understood is: admitting that the drive becomes non functioning but the data is still there, how easy is to find someone capable to extract these data and at what cost???

 

-Waits for it to be released in the UK impatiently- o.o

 

Amen to that

 

Because I use my notebook while on the road most of the time, I think of getting the ASG version.
My current Fujitsu notebook has a free fall sensor in-built already, which does not work as good as I've expected. When I turn the notebook on, while lying flat, then tilt it about 90 degree and then move it only slightly I can hear how it locks the HDD head almost every time.

Is it the same with the Seagate drive? Can you hear how it locks when you tilt the notebook and move it a bit?
Does it work in every position the same way?

 

I am not sure why that is so but in the US market it is very hard (almost impossible) to find the drives with free fall sensor. If you look at the 320GB versions, all the Seagate, Hitachi, WD, Fujitsu drives do not have that... Similarly the first 500GB 7200rpm drive (seagate 7200.4) did not have the sensor either...

I strongly doubt the version with the free fall sensor will come to the US retail market.

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And now you can buy this too! nothings stopping you...

who is gonna be the first to raid array these?

 

Someone who has the cash to do so~ So tempting though... Now waiting for UK prices +15%VAT T-T

 

ill have them in raid 0 as soon as they come in

 

eagerly awaiting some hdtunes ......... what's everyone expecting?? i think maybe average read of around 75- 80 mB/s, and maybe 15ms access tiems??

 

jisaac, it said on his hdtach.
It says 16.6ms, and 83.3mb/sec
with a peak around 105mb/sec

K-TRON

 

i suppose we can expect fast access times with the 250gb version?

 

now I've also ordered the Seagate drive (ASG version). End of next week I will receive it. I hope they are great

My seller said that they would have had the drive earlier, but seagate took the drives back, because they had a problem with the firmware.
So maybe the 7200.4 line had the same issues the 7200.11 had, they just were able to update the firmware before they released it. Because everything else doesn't make sense that they've moved the release date that often.

 

AHA! So my paranoia isn't worthless

 

I guess its too early to say, but would it be possible for anyone to get benchmarks on power consumption and a comparison to the WD500 BEVT I have been waiting for the WD500 to drop in price and now I see this 7200 one... I never had a laptop with a 7200 drive so its tempting to upgrade but I have concerns about long term costs besides the $30 more than the 5400 version, like battery or heat.