500Gb@5400rpm vs. 320Gb@7200rpm

i'm currently looking to upgrade my hard drive. 160Gb just isn't enough

i'm torn between going for a 500gb drive (w/ 5400rpm) or a 320Gb drive (w/ 7200rpm), especially due to heat vs. loading time questions. also, the 320Gb drive is cheaper. any advice/help?

 

Depends how much space you need. Loading times will be slightly better on the 7200RPM due to the lower access times.

I would go for the 500gig if you can find a deal for around $100-120.

I saw the 250GB 5K500.B on sale, don't remember where. If you can find its 500GB model, that drive should have the lowest power consumption among all the 320GB and 500GB drives.

 

The 320 gig will more than likely be faster so... how much space do you need?

 

The difference will be hard to notice unless you do moderate to heavy multitasking.

 

good question, actually. my 160Gb is far too small, i've found out by now. i'd also like to store some movies (no, not those kind of movies...) on my lappy. then again, i'm not the kind of guy that downloads every picture/video he sees... so i think 320Gb should be enough, right?

 

I'm no-where near filling both my 250 + 200 gig HDD's! It' just nice to put all the games and crap on the second one and keep the first for the system. I have about 30+ games installed + music and vids and i have 100Gb free on each hdd... yeah 320 7,200 is the way to go

 

By the way if the benchmarks on Tom's Hardware and Techreport.com are right, I expect the WD5000BEVT to outperform the Seagate 7200.3 320GB in real life. In synthetic benchmarks the Seagate will be faster.

The WD3200BEKT will be faster than the WD5000BEVT though. It is also likely to make more noise and use more power.

 

by "system", do you mean just the OS? because i don't see any OS taking up 100gb of space...

 

I would wait a few more weeks, because the 500ggb 7200rpm drives are on the brink of sale.
If you cant wait, I would go for a 320gb 7200rpm drive for two reasons:
1) they can be had for about $80
2) they have faster seek times
3) they hold a better resale value since they are higher rpm.

If you ever need more speed/capacity, simply sell your harddrive and go for something bigger and better

K-TRON

 

nice to hear, the best deals i could find are for WD anyway. i found both 320gb and 500gb models from WD:

WD3200BEKT -> 109Fr. (=95$)
WD5000BEVT -> 137Fr. (=119$)

are those good prices?

 

but won't those be very expensive, not to mention enormously hot?

 

No, i'll have say the os, music, and videos on one HDD and the programs and games on the other.

As philflow pointed out 7,200 rpm drives have a notable "hummm" to them compaired to 5,200 rpm drives. It's not likely to be audible over the system fans though.

 

No not really. Same heat as 320GB/7200rpm and the price here is about the same as WD5000BEVT it seems.

 

According to the spec, the new Seagate 7200 500GB drive uses less power than 7200 320GB from the same company. So, the new drive would be cooler.

 

Compare with www.Geizhals.at then you will know. Lowest price for WD5000BEVT is 89 euros.

 

sweet, 89 euros = 140Fr. > local price (137Fr.).

anyone want to hazard a guess if prices will drop substantially within the next month or two?

 

Actually I believe the WD5000BEVT has just taken a hit, so I don't think it will go below 70 euros within 2 months.

Predictions in the computerindustry aren't worth much though.

 

fair enough. at any rate, i think i'll wait until AW releases all the drivers for 64bit Vista, and then i'll switch to 500Gb & Vista x64

 

I just got a SAMSUNG Spinpoint M6 HM500LI 500GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive two weeks ago:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152114

I paid $99 with free shipping loving it. The only time it is seems to be slow is when I check disk management. The hd runs much faster then the 120gb that came with my laptop.

 

how's it in regards to noise and heat?

 

fastest 320gb/7200 rpm drive is the Seagate Momentus 7200.3

 

currently, WD5000BEVT is Piced 114 at newegg.com after I got mine 1week.

WD5000BEVT is very good hdd, its performance is similar to 7200rpm one.

 

In synthetic benchmarks it is, in real life benchmarks WD Scorpio Black often comes out quicker.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15079/4

 

whizzo,
the samsung Hm500LI is probably going to be the loudest 500gb drive because it has three platters and 6 heads crammed into a 9.5mm thick package. The samsung drive is based on three 166gb platters, so performance is lower and seek times are higher than a 500gb 5400rpm drive based on two 250gb platters.

K-TRON

 

uh-huh, i was figuring that the 500gb drives would be louder than the 320Gb drives. as it stands, i'm probably gonna go for the WD 320Gb one, unless a different one gets a big price drop.

 

No, in general 500GB drives aren't louder than 320GB drives.

Only the Samsung is because it's 3 platters.

 

We had this discussion Phil, I remember my Seagate beat the WD

As soon as the 500GB 7200rpm hit the market, I'll get one and do some benchmark for you guys.

 

In synthetic benchmarks yeah

Even PCMark is synthetic. We need real life measurements.

 

coming from someone who owned both a seagate 7200.3 and a WD Black (albeit they're both one platter 160GB 7200RPM and not the dual platter 320s) I would say this for the comparison:

Seagate is louder, but has a higher average read/write speed (not by much). This is done in HDtune BTW. However, my WD has the highest maximum read/write (around 80mb/s read), but also a lower minimum averaging out to a lower average. In real life testing, when I reformatted both and copied my files over, my Western Digital took around 30 minutes, while my Seagate took closer to 40-50. In gaming testing, I did not notice a difference (Loading within Fallout 3 btw). But the killer for me is that the Western Digital is dead silent, a winner.

 

Finally some real life testing. Thanks.

 

so WD seems to be the way to go. thanks for the info.

 

i must say though, the seagate i bought made clicking noises all the itme while everybody else on this forum told me that theirs were silent so my harddrive might just be an outlier

 

It seems to be hit and miss for all brands. Some click some don't.

 

I've read this and would like verification, but isn't it true that a higher capacity 5400rpm drive yields about the same performance as a lower capacity 7200rpm drive? Assuming this is true, wouldn't the 500GB 5400rpm drive function about the same as 320GB 7200rpm? Can anyone verify this for me?

 

I own Seagate 320GB 7200.3 ST9320421ASG. Drive is quite fast. But if your ear is sensitive (like mine), buy WD. Somebody in this forum suggested that WD black is "dead silent". In Seagate, when your computer idles, it'll click soft clicking noise as if the HD is indexing something. It does that all the time and really annoying if you have sensitive ear. So try WD black. Same fast 7200RPM.

Also Fujitsu (I forgot the PN) that is in my Sony VAIO is "dead silent" you can't hear a thing. It's just good, just like you use SSD. No clicking, no noise etc. IMO, go for WD.

 

About the same, but 320GB/7200 rpm is a little bit faster.

If you will notice it in real life is another story. During normal use it will be very hard to notice, during heavy multi tasking it will be possible.

Any brand can click and there are ways to make it stop.

 

Does anyone know what sort of time frame we are talking about before the 500GB 7200RPM drives are available to buy?

(I'm mostly thinking of a WD Drive)

 

I'm a Seagate megafan, but I'd go for the larger drive with this one. 500GB at 5400RPM, when combined with the increased areal density on each platter, ends up performing at least on par with the 320GB 7200RPM drive.

 

I would say at most 2-3 weeks. Some US retailers have already listed them...

It is also very likely that Seagate will be the first in selling the 500GB, 7200RPM drives...

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009857



--

 

That's not too bad actually although im sure the release and price wont be exactly mirrored over here unfortunately

 

Really? is that Hdd that silent? I had both hdd and SSD on my m1330 and the noise difference is HUGE SSD is just noiseless! .

 

How is the power-consumption considered into this?
Since a 320GB 7200RPM drive is considered "hot, performance wise", and a 5400RPM 500GB should be able to deliver almost the same results..
Shouldnt a new fancy 500GB 5400RPM consume alot less power since its simply spinning way slower, and thus lowering the power needed and giving you a longer battery-life?
And it stands to reason a new 5400RPM should be more silent, and cooler, then a new 7200RPM..

Reason im asking is im deciding what disc to purchase for my Macbook.
It gets delivered with a 250gb 5400RPM disc, and im either going for 7200RPM 320GB or 5400RPM 500GB disc...
Or honestly I could just buy a 7200RPM 500GB disc if thats the "best", but I really dont wanto affect my battery-life that much, and I want a quiet and cool PC (as quiet as possible anyways).

It would feel really stupid buying a macbook, slapping a bit heavy noisy disc in it and reducing batterypower to my current laptop....

Edit:
Since im seriously considering making a modification to my macbook at a later stage, removing the DVD-unit and placing a SSD in it, perhaps it would be the best choice to get a 500GB 5400RPM today, since its not _THAT_ big of a performance difference to a 5400RPM (measurable, but still..), it will better match a SSD+Storage solution, when I get it set up.

Then it stands between
Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 8MB 500GB
Seagate Momentus 5400.6 ST9500325AS 8MB 500GB (I think this is the one I should look at?)

I honestly dont know how those are built (discs/drive etc).

 

best to go with 7200, it makes a noticeable difference. and you probably wont hear any noise.. and amount of battery life decrease is tiny, especially compared to the speed increase

 

I had gathered as much from some reviews and forum posts over the internets....
But then again, my personal knowledge is that 7200 drastically reduces battery life, whilst increasing heat and noise by alot.
Ofcourse, I havent been frequently switching discs and doing that much fiddling with laptop hardware at all for over 5 years, appart from my own personal laptop, that I havent actually really made any drastic changes to, so I feel quite un-updated.

Thanks for the input,I would have prefered a WD-disc (Been reading alot of posts and similiar pointing towards WD being the winner, albeit the seagate seems to win mosts benchmarks it seem the WD wins in real performance and noise levels). However I havent seen 500GB models of WD around yet, atleast not 2.5" 500GB 7200RPM ones...

 

If you are comparing the seagate 5400.6 to the WD5000BEVT, get the WD5000BEVT. It has faster seek times and higher IOPS than the seagate does. John ratsey made a few posts about it in his thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=307430

If you are then comparing a 500gb 5400rpm drive to a 320gb 7200rpm drive, get the 7200rpm model because it will have faster seek times and generate more IOPS than a 5400rpm model.

K-TRON

 

You will get airbourne accoustics more noticeable on your Macbook, you could measure your laptop noise levels and if you stated want a quiet and cool HDD then the 5400rpm is the way to go. In my experience I've not found a 'dead silent' HDD, even the WD 3200BEVT 5400rpm model makes the same airbound sound as the 7200rpm model, so If you're not that sensitive to the HDD noise and don't leave for example your laptop ON at nights and want the speed boost get the 7200rpm , I've found no evidence to state the 7200 is definitely hotter or noisier than the 5400 because discovered both modalities make the same sound.

 

Well the 320gb one sounds like it would be sufficient amount of space and the 7200rpm is also a plus.However some extra heat,sound,and battery life would be have to be taken in consideration. Well depending in what hard drive u like. I like this one ---
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136280would be a good choice. WELL THATS JUST ME