Any rumors on a 2.5" 7200RPM HD greater than 500GB?

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has heard any rumors about a standard sized, 2.5" 7200RPM HD that is greater than 500GB in size. I was hoping to hear something at this years CES.

I know there are a few large 5400RPM drives out already, but, they seem to be slow on releasing the 7200RPM variety.

I'm wanting to upgrade my WD Scoprio Black 320GB to something with more capacity.

Sorry if this has been asked already... I tried searching but wasn't able to find anything.

Thanks!

 

If you are going to upgrade get a 7K500, it is an awesome drive. I myself haven't seen 640GB dual platters yet either in 7200 RPM. Having had a 7200.4 if Seagate releases a 640GB I personally won't bother with it.

 

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I've heard lots of good things about the 7K500 as well. I'm not in any immediate rush, so I was hoping to at least get to 640GB.

From what was happening with all the 5400RPM 640GB announcements last fall, I thought they'd already have a 7200RPM version out by now.

Yes, I've really cooled off from Seagate as well. After they had all those firmware issues with their desktop and laptop drives, it really put me off.

 

Sofar it shows that the 500GB/5400rpm WD is faster than 640GB/5400rpm.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/640gb-mobile-hdd,2451-6.html

There's a good chance the 640GB/7200rpm drives won't be faster than 500GB/7200rpm due to increasing seek times.

There are a lot of fans here of the 7K500 drive. It's a good drive but it has one drawback: the IOPS scores in HDTune Pro are less than the WD3200bekt. How these drives compare in real life is uncertain.

 

Thanks for chiming in Phil.

I actually got the 7200 WD 320 on your recommedation I've actually been pretty happy with it. I got it mostly for it's multitasking abilities.

I was hoping to find a 640GB or larger drive that had at least the same performance as my 320GB.

Have you heard of anything coming down the pipe?

 

knowthenazz,

Unfortunately, unless you spend big (BIG) bucks on a high capacity SSD, your wishes for a high capacity mechanical HD matching the performance/feel of your Scorpio Black 320 is slim to none.

The reason is because as platter density increases, the signal to noise ratio of the heads decreases dramatically. What this translates to is higher seek access times as the heads have to be find the narrower tracks and more error correction is taking place before the HD can feed the data it's retrieved to the RAM/CPU.

To see this effect over time, just look up the seek times from the 7K60, the 7K100, the 7K200 and now the 7K500. In this respect the 7K60 has the best 'feel' - but even if it was a SATA native HD, it would seem silly to use this drive in 2010 - capacity-wise and performance wise (other than the fasssst access times it had).

Time marches on and we are on the cusp of when SSD's will take over (at least for notebooks) mechanical HD's - but we are not there yet - so SSD's are insanely overpriced (comparatively) for large capacity versions and mechanical HD manufacturer's do not wish to do the R&D to make a real breakthrough in high capacity and high responsiveness notebook drives.

I predict that my next almost '10 yr' life expectancy notebook will be in 2012 or 2013 - The amount of onboard CPU power, RAM quantity and speed/capacity of SSD's will all come together that will last me until sometime into 2020.

I'm using eBoostr (beta 4) with my Hitachi 7K500 and 8GB RAM right now and am in a pretty comfortable position to wait until then.

Cheers!

 

Well we're still waiting for the 500GB Scorpio Black. Based on WD's prior track record that will be the fastest HDD when it comes out.

 

I am looking for a 2.5 inch hard drive with 7200rpm with sata 150. But the highest amount of gig I can find is 200, the hitachi's with 320 gig for example only come with sata 300. So am I limited to 200gigs, or are those sata 300 drives backwards compatible so I could opt for 320 or even 500 gigs?

 

Yes they are backward compatible.

 

I hope you are sure I think i'm going to buy it from the netherlands since I can't find one decent Belgium online store for hardware parts. Do you know any good dutch stores that deliver outside the Netherlands Phil?

 

I am sure. Many dutch stores deliver to Belgium.

These are good price comparison sites that include shop reviews:
http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/
http://www.hardware.info/

 

Thanks for your input.

I didn't realized we were so close to "bottoming out" in terms of hard drive capacity.

I guess it was wrong to assume that since they have 640GB 5400RPM drives, that 640GB 7200RPM drives would be right around the corner.

 

I honestly thought the 500GB Scorpio Black was going to be released in 2009. I'm awfully surprised it hasn't been released by now.

Do you have any idea what the hold up could be?

Is it just a marketing thing?

 

I don't know. Maybe WD has not been satisfied yet with the test results of pre production models.

They were a bit late with the 320GB Black but it was worth the wait.

 

Ok thx, I'm thinking of getting this one: http://hd.nl/p/hitachi/HTS723232L9A360
Is there any tool I need except a small screwdriver? I've never replaced a hard drive before, I guess i'll just unscrew everything and just pull the old one out?

 

When I tested the 7K320, I found it lacking (speed-wise). I can't honestly recommend it myself. Not a bad drive or anything, but I suspect the WD Scorpio Blue 500GB to be equal, if not faster and bigger.

When you're removing/replacing a HD: make sure you have the power cable disconnected from the notebook and also remove the battery. Do not press the top/bottom of the HD together (always hold it by it's edges).

Once the new drive is physically installed: go into your BIOS and check that it sees the new HD. At this point it is simply a matter of installing Windows, drivers, programs and data - and enjoy!

Cheers!

 

Get this one instead, it's faster and cheaper: http://www.redcoon.be/index.php/cmd...stern_Digital_WD3200BEKT_Scorpio_Black_320GB/

 

I hope it will be a considerable improvement from my 160gig 5400rpm WD, eventhough you say the hitachi is a bit disapointing, its higher rate should still be noticable right?
The main reason why i'm upgrading is to have more space for games anyway (those files are really becomming huge).

 

Get the 320GB Black, it's slightly faster than the 500GB Blue. Especially with launching applications and multi tasking.

Downsides: it consumes a bit more power and can make more noise.

 

Power is no problem, i'm using this lappy as a dekstop. The noise is no problem, my current HD is also a WD and i'm used to it. Even if it were louder I wouldn't mind, I rather have a fast roaring ferrari than a slow soundless bike. I won't hear it during gaming anyway.

@phil & knowthenazz
Thx for all the info i'll rep you both as soon as i'm permited to rep again ^^

 

My WD 320 7200 Black is pretty quite. The only time I can hear it is if the room is completely silent.

And thanks for the rep... I need all I can get

 

forget about things like sata 2/3 and rpm.

pay attention to max and sustained transfer rate. those two numbers are all that count.

 

newsposter,

In my experience, the 'two numbers that count' are minimum and average transfer rates, along with fast access times (lower ms scores). If two drives are identical but one has a higher minimum transfer rate - that one is faster. Also, if again identical except for higher average rate - I would choose that one.

Maximum transfer rate is only useful in benchmarks and sustained transfer rates ignore how responsive the HD should feel. A great example is the 7200.4 Seagates. Great benchmarks, horrible (for me) real world performance (based on the spec's you quote).

Cheers!