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Laptop hard drive... 5400 or 7200 ?
KenR:
I would love to get the 200 GB, 7200 RPM drive Hitachi Laptop Hard Drive, but how can I tell if it will work in my Gateway computer? Do I just get it, try, and return if not or is there some general way I can know or reference that can tell me?
Thanks, Ken
f0dder:
Can't see why it wouldn't work if it's the right connection type (SATA vs IDE/PATA), old BIOSes didn't support large harddrives, but that's pretty much a thing of the past now, unless your laptop is old :)
vegas:
Can't see why it wouldn't work if it's the right connection type (SATA vs IDE/PATA), old BIOSes didn't support large harddrives, but that's pretty much a thing of the past now, unless your laptop is old :)
-f0dder (December 29, 2007, 05:56 AM)
--- End quote ---
Yeah, what he said. :)
Darwin:
Great! Another guinea pig (I hope)! As I've stated, I'm quite keen to see/read more real world/real user's experiences with the upgrade to a 7200.2 drive vs. 5400 rpm. For me to go down this road will involve ordering a drive and paying to have it shipped to me, so I want to be sure that it's going to be worth my while ;) Thus, Ken and Armando, if either or you do this, please let us know how things turn out.
PS Thanks, vega, for already telling us about your experience. Would you mind elaborating on it a bit? For example, have you noticed a big difference in terms of battery life and heat dissipation? How about performance - how significant is the increase (yes, I know this is pretty subjective!)? What might be more interesting - from everyone who goes down this path - are the specs of the notebook that you upgraded. I'm considering doing this on a first generation Centrino with an anaemic 1.4Ghz PM processor and 2GB of 266MHz RAM. I'm wondering if the upgrade to a 7200.2 drive is going to benefit me that much given that the bottleneck on my system is the processor (not that I really suffer that much)...
Armando:
No no no Darwin, we won't tell you a thing. You'll have to find it the hard way. :P
I spent a little while yesterday looking at different models. I thought that the Seagate Momentus was the best choice in its category (at the store where I can buy it : http://www.microbytes.com/computer/ordinateur/index.php?cPath=2050700&sort=4a&page=2), but it seems like there are other interesting contenders...
They also have the Samsung HM250JI, 250gb 5400 rpm... This one is 139 $, compared to 179 $ for the Seagate 160 gb ST9160823ASG 7200 rpm.
So I went searched a bit more, and here's what I found at tom's hardware :
The M5S top model is called HD250JI, spins at 5,400 RPM and outperforms almost every other 2.5" hard drive. Even better, it does so without requiring more energy than its direct competitors. Only 7,200 RPM drives such as the Fujitsu MHW2160BJ deliver quicker access times and better I/O performance, but in terms of data transfer performance the new Samsung drive is already very close. Both drives are backed by a three-year factory warranty.
Fujitsu shows better overall performance and quicker access times, while Samsung's drive offers 50% higher capacity and lower energy requirements. So, which one should the real enthusiast go for? If you're looking for maximum performance, there is no way around the MHW2160BJ, as it even surpasses Seagate's Momentus 7200.2 with higher transfer rates and better energy efficiency. For maximum performance for desktop replacement PCs, I'd go for the Fujitsu drive at this time, because additional storage can be added via external storage devices. The mobile user should rather go for the Samsung HM250JI, because it offers almost comparable performance, but has the capacity reserves you might need on the road.
--- End quote ---
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/02/speed_or_capacity/page10.html
And elsewhere (http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage25.html ) when compared to others (and particularly the Seagate), the 5400 rpm Samsung scores impressive results. Apart from I/O benchmarks, the Samsung is almost neck to neck with the Seagate, it's cheaper, and it's got at least 80 GB more of storage. Not bad.
But I'm certainly not a specialist in benchmarks and I don't know what these I/O benchmarks tell exactly...
------------------------------------------Samsung-----Seagate
Storage capacity------------------------------250gb 160gb [OUPS : I MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE HERE...]
Price------------------------------------------139$CA 179$CA
Interface performance (Mb/s)------------------115.8 121.4
Random access time (ms)----------------------17.3 14.2
Maximum read transfer rate (Mb/s)-------------61.8 59.6
Average read transfer performance (Mb/s)------46.9 45.8
Minimum read transfer performance (Mb/s)------31.1 30.6
Maximum write transfer performance (Mb/s)-----61.6 56.5
Average write transfer performance (Mb/s)-----46.6 44.8
Minimum write transfer performance (Mb/s)-----30.7 30.2
Windows XP startup performance (Mb/s)--------7.0 7.9
File writing performance (Mb/s)-----------------59.0 53.9
Fileserver I/O benchmark pattern (I/O op. /s)----581 671
Web server I/O benchmark pattern (I/O op. /s)--552 663
Database I/O benchmark pattern (I/O op. /s)----603 678
Workstation I/O benchmark pattern (I/O op. /s)--643 756
Idle power consumption (W)---------------------0.9 1.1
Maximum power consumption (W)----------------3.1 3.8
what do you think ?
Edit : by the way, I've read in some forums that the Samsung had some firmware problems when it first shipped the hard drive, but according to Tom's hardware, it should be a problem of the past... http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/02/speed_or_capacity/page4.html
Edt 2 : Darwin : one thing that the benchmarks seem to tell is that it's not so much about the rotating speed anymore... seeing some 5400 rpm drives beat 7200 rpm drives certainly tells something... or am I misunderstanding the numbers???
Edit3 : added the price and storage capacity of the beasts
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