What capacity size is fastest version of Hitachi 7k500 drive?

The Hitachi 7k 500 drive uses 2 x 250GB platters I believe making max capacity of 500GB. My question is is 250GB version of the drive the quickest or are the 320GB and 160GB versions any faster than the 250GB version? Or am I wrong in that actually there is no difference between the capacities.

I would like to buy the fastest version. Other than the seagate momentus xt are there other mechanical non ssd or hybrid drives that compare to the 7k500 in terms of performance?

Thanks

 

The 250GB would be fastest in theory. The 320GB uses two spindles. Seagate has a 750GB 7200.5 drive but I haven't seen benches yet.

 

Good question, sometimes they mechanically short stroke so smaller can be faster. Sorry I can't help on this. But as said above, in theory larger with same number of platters should be faster. Called areal density. But if you restrict head movement who knows.

 

I've once used the 250GB varient before pitted againts my 7K500 500GB, there's no doubt that it IS fast. Too bad I sold it before I ran benchies on it. The folly's on me.

All I know was, the owner mentioned "giving up my other Seagate and WD 320GB and 500GB drives as this the fastest harddrive I've ever purchased" in his SMS.

Either way, the 7K500 series is a hell of a drive. Benchmarks aside, the performance differences and "feel" are minute between capcities. I've had the 2x 500GB installed in RAID as well. Pick anyone up regardless of capacity, you won't be dissappointed.

 

^ Agreed..

 

I think the areal density is the same between all the 7k500 drives - all of them use 250GB platters. The 250GB would be one platter, the 500GB would be two platters, and the 320GB would be one and a half platters - i.e. one surface of one platter won't be used, and it would only use the top 320GB of the 375GB available.

If you use the whole drive, a drive with the same areal density but more platters has a slight disadvantage due to some additional overhead in switching platters.

However, the first 250GB of a two-platter 500GB drive will be faster than a single-platter 250GB drive, since only the outer halves of the platter surfaces will be used.

On the whole, though, I'd still suggest to most people to choose between these drives based on capacity alone, and possibly power consumption depending on where the drive will go.

 

what do the spec sheets say? May as well start with that concrete data before speculating about real-world comparisons.

 

You trust the MFG and think they produce what OP is asking? You my friend are well in a fantasy.

 

no more a fantasy than uninformed speculation......

The spec sheets for hard drives are generally accurate. The third party makers of disk arrays use and depend on that design data as the basis for their own machines. The definition of the data points and the test methods used to determine them is well established by IEEE specification.

 

You won't notice the difference between the 250GB, 320GB or 500GB without running benchmark software.

My take: the 250GB will be slightly faster due to single platter design. For an explanation why use the search function.