100GB 72K vs. 160GB 54K HD, what is your choice?

Bascially, both HD cost you the same.
Better performance vs. Larger capacity. What is your choice?

How helpful is the 1GB flash buffer? I think this option is a must have, because there is no way to upgrade if you didn't choose it at the beginning. Can I expect the 5.4 HD with the help of the new buffer tech outrun 7.2K HD in T60?

 

If also consider the lower temp and quieter when operating, I give my vote to the 160GB 5400rpm seagate.

 

I own both...and they perform about the same. So enjoy more space...160GB.

 

Usually the smaller but faster HD would cost more, so it's the better "value"

of course, the best value depends on your needs. Faster is good for copying large data and at boot-up. If you mostly surf & stream, I dont think the faster drive is much benefit so you might rather save your money or opt for bigger.

 

160GB

The platters are more dense, so the speed trade off is not as great as in the old days.

 

I ordered mine with 100gb 7200rpm because I personally don't need a lot of battery time as I use this item usually plugged in. But I do transfer date a lot and it is a noticeable difference when comparing 5400 vs 7200 rpm if you frequently transfer data. If I need additional storage space, I have 3 Terabytes on my main machine or 500 gb/60gb/20gb/4gb portable drives as well as other misc media that I can use and this can apply for others as well because portable storage devices are getting cheaper.

 

Does the 120GB option benefit from perpendicular recording too?

 

I have my external Maxtor 160GB portable for storage, I would even go with a 60gb 7200. But since it's only a few dollars more, the 100GB 7200rpm is definately worth it.

 

I have the 100GB Seagate 7200RPM. It's the best drive I ever owned.

 

I'm not a hard drive expert, but I have done a lot of research on the topic over the years. Last I heard, the 7200rpm drives were proven to not generate the high heat levels that many claimed and battery life reduction because of them is also overstated.

I do a lot of video work on my laptop, and the 7200rpm drive is a must for me. On my last laptop, I ordered it with a 5400 and later upgraded to a 7200. I could definitely see an increase in speed (and better performance when capturing DV video in realtime.)

 

You can see the numbers for yourself at the Tom's Hardware 2.5" HD Charts.

Assuming these are the drives Lenovo offers with their laptops, compare the Seagate Momentus 5400.3 160 GB SATA and the Seagate Momentus 7200.1 100GB SATA.

Average write transfer performance:
7200.1: 37.9 MB/s
5400.3: 34.5 MB/s

Average read transfer performance:
7200.1: 37.9 MB/s
5400.3: 34.6 MB/s

As you can see the numbers are very similar, with the 7200 drive giving an extra 10% performance. Why not go for the extra 60 GB instead?

If you throw the new Seagate Momentus 7200.2 160GB into the mix (not offered by Lenovo as far as I know), this drive has the best numbers yet: Average read of 45.8 MB/s and average write of 44.8 MB/s which equates to around 32% additional performance compared with the Seagate 5400.3 and 20% better than the 7200.1.

The Hitachi 7k200 is supposed to be even faster but it's not included in the Tom's Hardware chart.

 

On customised systems, which 100gb 7200 drive we are getting? Seagate, hitachi or?

 

The 100GB 72K is fine for me since the T61 will be replacing an OLD Compaq Pentium III Deskpro EN with only (horrors) 15GB of HDD.

 

It's a Seagate. According to the numbers posted above, the 7200 gives you a pretty nice perf boost, and in my past experience, it's noticeable.

 

? According to the numbers above you get a meager boost. I'd rather have the storage if it's only 10%

 

I ordered my new T60p with a 100GB 7200 RPM drive. I have not had 7200 on a laptop but there was a noticeable difference with the speed of my desktop when I switched to 7200 RPM.

The other thing to consider as I think several posters have mentioned that the IDLE and MAX power consumption of the 7200 drives is about 2x what the 5400 RPM drives are. In general the hdd is not the biggest contributor to battery drain, it probably is the 4th (LCD, CPU, GPU, then HDD) so I don't know how much this really matters. I'm really hoping that I at least get 2.5 hrs from my 6 cell battery, but I fear that may be optimistic given that I have the 15.4" screen, v5250, and 7200rpm drive... when I get it I'll report back to everyone.

 

Personally, based on the numbers above I will be ordering the 5400 rpm 160GB drive with my X61 Tablet. Hopefully the Intel Turbo Memory will make up for any reductions in performance. My next upgrade will probably be to install an SSD in a year or two once the price-cacpacity ratio goes down.

 

I would honestly say that a 7200 RPM HDD only benefits you on a laptop if you do some serious HDD-intensive work - the response times are really the only benefit of a 7200 RPM notebook HDD nowadays - with Perpendicular Recording on the 5400 RPMs, such as the Seagate 5400.3... performance in terms of read/write are very similar. Now, i believe Seagate/Hitachi have both released their second gen (7200.2 / 7K200) high speed notebook hard drives that have perpendicular recording as well - that may provide enough incentive for people to return to the 7200/5400 war again.

Case in point - 7200 RPM notebook HDDs, for now, only offer faster response times. Their throughput vs 5400 RPM Perpendicular HDDs are very similar.

 

there was definitely a HUGE performance boost in the X-series thinkpads when they were upgraded to 5400rpm from 4200rpm.

so why not a siginificant boost in the T going from 5400 to 7200. For example, isn't boot-up faster?

 

There's no denying that in general 7200 drives will be faster than 5400 drives. In this instance, however, Lenovo is giving us the choice of one of the fastest 5400 drives (the Seagate 5400.3) or a mediocre 7200 drive (the Seagate 7200.1). The difference in performance between these two specific drives is 10%. If Lenovo began using the new Seagate 7200.2 or the Hitachi 7K200, we would be seeing a bigger gap between 5400 and 7200.

 

I see... but how do you know your exact part until you get it??

i haven't known my parts' manufacturer/model (lcd, keyboard, and drive) until i had the laptop

 

I have not measured this, but of course boot up will be faster as that relies more upon response times, and start up is very disk intensive. What I was saying though was more of the day to day tasks that are not as intensive or heavily relying on the HDD will not show as big of an improvement.

As for the HDD makers, Seagate is the only provider for Lenovo for their 7200 RPM options I believe. Seagate is also the provider for the 5400 RPM HDDs for the T60s. I am not sure about what other manufacturers they are using though.

 

Depends on what you do - aside from the 10% throughput difference, seek times will also be quite a bit less with a 7200RPM drive.