Which HDD? Seagate/Hitachi 160gb 5400.3 or 100 gb 7200.1?

I saw there was another post asking a similar question but I didnt know if I should tack on the end of it or make a new thread, sorry.

I have a HP nc6400 with Core2 2ghx, 2 GB RAM and 128 MB dedicated video. I bought the 40GB HDD with the intent of buying the 100 GB 7200 rpm seagate or hitachi , or the 160 GB Perpendicular recording 5400 rpm drive. I've read almost all the reviews and charts but still dont know what would be best for me.

I use Adobe Photoshop with large files often, Adobe Indesign, Acrobat, Outlook, Google Earth, Quark, Macromedia Contribute, and so on.

I like that my notebook is quiet so I'm shying away from the Hitachi brand, but I also value performance. I'm actually pretty happy with the notebook with the std. 5400rpm 40 gb drive, but that's probably due to to the fact that I've upgraded to such a fast processor with lots of ram. Also, 100 GB is just enough space, but 160 GB is always nice.

I was surprised to see that one of the test showed that the 160GB Seagate booted windows faster than the 7200 rpm drive, did anyone else see that? how is that possible?

Some other issues:
heat - I heard that it not big deal
price- 160GB costs more, no big deal
reliability- I was surprised by the number of negative reviews at newegg for the PATA version. Will I have the same issues with SATA?
noise- seems that seagate is pretty quiet

To conclude, could you please advise if you think the 7200 rpm will be noticable faster/better than the 5400rpm 160 GB drive?

I'm leaning towards the seagate 5400.3 now, anyone know if the Hitachi version is available? Which one is better?

Thanks!

 

DO read that other post. A lot of people have answered your question from different points of view.

 

Well I would say get the 160GB Drive.

I know some people that have the 7200 RPM Hitachi drive and it's LOUD.

Personally I have a 120GB 5400RPM drive and space is important but not as important as having a quiet laptop, the choice if yours, but be warned the 7200 is loud and annoying, and the speed difference betwee nthe two is negligible.

 

I was looking for a 160GB SATA drive for my Core 2 Duo notebook earlier. I found five:

1. Samsung Spinpoint HM160JI
2. Hitachi Travelstar 5K160
3. Toshiba MK1637GSX
4. WD Scorpio WD1600BEVS
5. Seagate Momentus 5400.3 (ST9160821AS)

In the end, I got the Hitachi 5K160 for its fast seek. But I find the seek comes at the cost of loud noise. My notebook came with the Toshiba MK1234GSX 120GB drive which is really quiet. If you want a quiet drive, I would recommend trying the Toshiba or the Samsung.

 

Some people say that the 100GB 7200RPM drives are very loud, but this has not been my experience. I know seagate's 7200RPM drives are more quiet. So If you want a speedy drive, perhaps a Seagate 100GB 7200RPM drive.

I would also try and avoide Toshiba. WD makes good drives though. I own 2 80GB 2.5" 5400RPM drives and they run great, and are very quiet. I'd lean towards Seagate, or possibly WD.

 

I have the 100GB Seagate. It is very cool and quiet.

 

I have the Samsung Spinpoint HM160JI. It is significantly quieter than the 120GB Momentus 5400.2 which it replaced and seems to run about 1 degree cooler. Performance may lag slightly behind the equivalent Seagate and Hitachi products, (see the HDD charts at Toms Hardware), but the price is also a little lower.

John

 

Since you use programs which need to access the HD quite often, i would suggest getting the 7200RPM drive. It will feel more responsive than the 5400RPM. The 7200RPM gains 2ms of access time over the 5400RPM. See graph and article below provided byTom's HW.


http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage25.html?modelx=33&model1=426&model2=423&chart=140

 

The 160GB 5400rpm drive will be pretty quick mainly due to the high areal density (faster than the smaller 5400rpm HDD) but it won't be faster than the 100GB 7200rpm in most tasks if not all tasks. The difference is small though so suggest you go for the 160GB. 60GB extra is quite a lot...

 

Wow, thanks for all the great input. I did read the other post, but I guess I just wanted some additional info. I did not know about the Toms HW guide so I plugged in the two that I'm considering, very useful except guess I really dont know how the numbers will translate into real world differences. Is there a specific benchmark that best sums up overall performance? Any thoughts on this?

Here's the link with the SATA versions of the two drives:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage25.html?modelx=33&model1=425&model2=422&chart=140

I was thinking that sound is not as big of a deal as I thought, I wont be using processor intensive apps while away from my desk, so it really doesnt matter, as long as its not super loud.

Thanks again.

 

The 160GB 2.5" SATA drives carry a small price premium right now; 120GB drives can be had for cheap. 120GB 5400RPM drives go for around $95 on Newegg.com, while the 160GB drives go for $160. 100GB 7200RPM SATA drives have recently come down in price and are now about $120 on Newegg.

My laptop has a 100GB 7200RPM Hitachi, and the laptop I am currently reviewing has a 160GB 5400RPM Hitachi. The 7200RPM drive feels faster and is more responsive as is expected, although the difference is not great. If I had to buy a new hard drive for my laptop all over again, I would go for the 160GB drive because it's not that much slower than the 100GB 7200RPM, and it has 60GB more storage.

In your case though, if you need speed, get the 100GB 7200RPM. The hard drive is the slowest component in the computer and therefore any increase in speed will be noticeable.

 

DONE! I ordered the 160 GB Seagate 5400.3.

It seems from what everyones saying, the performance difference is not huge, and 5400 rpm is good enough. I think the extra space will be useful down the road, and I think I'm going to mirror some of the network drives on my laptop so I can work off the HDD instead of over the network. Is the HDD faster than the gigabit network?

Thanks again everyone.

 

Anything wrong with Toshiba?

 

They are slower than seagate and hitachi

 

and have a tendancy to fail more often - purchased two Toshiba's compared to around 40 seagate / hitachi (all 7200 series)(none have failed) - the only ones that have failed were the Toshiba's - they were also as stated above, lower performance than the seagate/hitachi -

 

I had one more question, how does RPM effect multitasking?

The reason I ask is that with my Core 2 2.0 ghz w 2GB of RAM, the only time it feels slow is when multitasking, and I can see and hear the HDD working. Would a 7200 rpm drive make a big difference in that regard?

Thanks again.

 

The 7200RPM will feel more responsive than the 5400RPM due to it's lowest seek time.