What is the current reccomended buy for a 7200 2.5" drive?

I have used Seagate in the past - but it seems their current generation of drives - have serious quality issues. What is the current consensus amongst the group on the best 7200rpm SATA laptop drive?

Thanks

Derek.-

 

What size are you looking at? If you want the biggest, I'd recommend the Hitachi 7K500 500GB drive.

 

When I look around for that hard drive I tend to get diferent pictures, one where you can see the drive, and one where its compeltely covered, does that matter if your looking for a laptop drive?
Also, I seem to get diferent info about the sata interface: one claims to be 300, the other 4**, and then theres also the option of sata II, I have no idea which one to pick for my acer...

 

250-320 gb max - don't need a ton of storage on this laptop.

 

go for the seagate 7200.4! then u can tell me if its anygood

and to Student@antwerp2009 the pictures without the cover are just to make the drive look more interesting, it will be covered, otherwise there'd be a massive risk of hdd failure!

 

Hitachi 7K500 500GB was going for $80

Hitachi 7500 250GB is single platter, probably the best HDD you can buy right now (speed, noise, power consumption).

 

I'm looking into this too. was looking for the best performance increase rather than storage capability....so 200-320gb is fine. Any complaints about the WD 320GB Scorpio? or is the comparable Hitachi better?

Or should I spring for the SSD 80gb Intel x-25? or wait for prices to fall....

i have a year old HP Dv-7 stock 5000RPM single....will the these new 7200 drives make a noticeable difference?

 

ryanpick,

You may want to check out this:

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5609040#post5609040


and also this:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=856&type=expert&pid=1

But the 160GB G2 is still currently your best bet, followed by the Hitachi 7K500.

Cheers!

 

i used a 7200.4 seagate 250gb hdd i like it and works better than other hard drives i have used.

 

Espada, while there are many who have used 7200.4's successfully in their systems, I have tried and returned 4 of them. (Buyer beware).

With many other options available, including the new Hitachi 7K500, I can't recommend a 7200.4 even to 'try' with good conscious.

 

They perform on the same level. The WD may even be faster but no one has published real world benchmarks.

I'd still go for the Hitachi as you can get 500GB for $80, it's more power efficient and quieter than the WD.

Or even better: get the 250GB 7K500. The single platter design results in slightly lower acces times, noise and power consumption.

That blows away any traditional hard drive. Take it if 80Gb is enough for you.

Which one? (brand/type)

 

ordered the Intel SSD. grandma had loaded $125 on Amazon for my B-day so i just paid the difference.

I'm just going to keep 90% of my media files (docs, music, video) on my 500gb usb external drive(which i pretty much do now)...do a clean install of win 7 and i shouldn't have too much trouble keeping to 60gb assuming i need to leave 20gb free for optimum performance

once i got this setup, i might possibly buy the Hitachi for the the 2nd drive bay

 

Good setup. Or get a 5400rpm drive for the second one, it won't make much difference.

 

your right, so i'm just going to move the one i have now over to the empty bay...had to/just purchased a hard drive caddy

 

ryanpick,

Does your 2nd HD bay have the necessary connectors and wiring in place for a second HD? You might want to check if you didn't order it with two HD's from the factory.

(Manufacturer's are so stingy these days: nothing is given for 'free').

Cheers!

 

Blasphemy!

Now you mention that!!!

 

Hitachi HTS545050B9A300 is pretty good HDD I have it for data storage
my system is on WD 3200BEKT and is not much faster as you can see.

 

Your platform or your setup is really limiting the performance of the Hitachi.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5721883&postcount=45

 

I think hifibloke is using 5k500, not 7k500 ?

 

I think your Hitachi is 7200rpm mine is 5400rpm

 

but I think the performance of your 320 scorpio black is not good ??
or is it the standard? I tought scorpio black can go faster than that?

 

I know i was expecting 7200rpm and 16MB cashe to be better then this

 

Sorry hifibloke,

Didn't realize you weren't using the 7K500.

But, the Scorpio does seem slow then too...

What setup are you running? O/S, RAM, CPU?

Just curious, is all.

 

I have win7 64bit 4GB RAM GeForce 9600GT and T6600 CPU will change soon to T9600.

found this http://www.legitreviews.com/article/955/3/ the only difference is the BJKT free-fall sensor.

 

That system is going to fly, huh?

I don't know, so don't pay any attention to me, but... will the T9600 work on your MB? The T6600 is 800Mhz FSB and the T9600 is 1066Mhz FSB.

Just checking!

 

yea can't wait to unleash full potential of DDR3

it looks like 7K500 is real killer http://www.pcshoptalk.com/showthread.php?25296-HITACHI-Travelstar-7K500-500-2-5-Hard-Drive&p=93743 I would like to have one ....

 

dangg I wish I can find 7k500 in my place
they only have 5400rpm drives here and take it online will boost the cost bcause of import taxes

 

Lol the Scorpio slow.... that benchmark by hifibloke shows an acces time of 14.5ms !!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Scorpio can even stay ahead of the 7K500 just look at the throughput on smaller files and random reads.

Random Access Read Avg speed (MB/s):
.....................7K500............7200.4.......Scorpio
512 bytes:.......0.026.............0.028........0.033 MB/sec.
4KB:................0.208........... .0.234.......0.0271 MB/sec.
64KB:..............3.241.............3.564.......4.107 MB/sec.
1MB:..............32.105...........32.512.......31.959 MB/sec.
Random:..........20.152...........20.362......22.022 MB/sec.

 

Lol...

Phil, it can only stay ahead for 160GB's worth of data - then it is infinitely slower than the 7K500 500GB HD.

Benchmarks are not real life.

Cheers!

 

I feel like newbie (well I am LOL)
so transfer rate means nothing and we should see access time/IOPS instead?

 

Exactly my point.

And as you know the closest to real life performance are the HDTune IOPS scores, not sequential reads or PCMark Vantage.

 

crayonyes,

Nothing exists in a vacuum (which is what benchmarks are), other factors are sometimes more important than the thing we're testing (or, in this case, the benchmark we're stuck on).

Cheers!

 

Well synthetic benchmarks are basically unreliable, but if you want to rely on anything it's better to go for the Random Acces time page in HDTune Pro and look at the throughput and IOPS scores.

But it would be far better to compare real life performance, like duplicating a 5GB folder and then see who is faster.

Well I'd really like to know if that is true. So far this 250GB is faster on small, medium files, large files files and random reads. So whether the 7K500 will really be faster will have to be proven in real life.

 

Phil,

you quoted me when I was responding to the HD Tune benchmark of the 160GB Scorpio Black.

What I mean is; a smaller capacity drive can be as fast as it wants - but when capacity and speed are equally important, it is an also ran.

Cheers!

 

Oh well yes when you definetely need 500GB Hitachi 7K500 is the way to go.

When 160 - 320GB is enough, the WD Black MAY even be faster. But really, we don't know.

 

tilleroftheearth & Phil,

I see... great lesson today! Thanks guys!

 

You're very welcome Crayonyes

Bytheway, this should be an exciting hard drive:
http://www.nowdirect.com/exec/partInfo/part_detail.tsb?prcpart=OBM0A72332

250GB for $58.30. Great deal too.

 

Is there a shortage problem with these drives right now? Seems to be elusive to find.

I assume that I would want a Travelstar 7k250. Does the single platter held reliability?

 

The 250GB 7K500 has not been sold yet.

I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly but a single platter design does not improve reliability. It does slightly improve acces times, power consumption and noise.

 

is the 7k500 for sale yet at any size...? i can't find it anywhere

 

Here is the 320GB 7K500 model:

See:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145274


The 500GB 7K500 is out of stock, it seems.

 

do they ship to uk....?

 

Probably not (according to Phil - mod), if I remember correctly.

Sorry!

 

is the speed difference between the single platter 250gb 7200rpm hard drives and 320gb or 500gb ones noticable in real world situations?

 

I would vote no. Contrary to what every else thinks of single platter versions of the same model line HD's, I would even say the 500GB (highest capacity) model will be the fastest in real world use, but not in benchmarks that simulate it.

I base this belief on the fact that with two platters having double the 'fastest speed possible tracks' (those on the outside edges of the platters), the probability of a modern, large, O/S and app/data install will more than likely be located on these fast outside edges - more so than a single platter design will, anyway.

To ensure that I am at these fast edges for my O/S and programs:

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5617217#post5617217


Hope this helps?

Cheers!

 

ye thanks!

 

It will be very hard to notice.