2.5" Hard Drive Shootout.

I thought everyone might find this review handy in shopping for notebook drives. For the empeg, slower drives are actually better from what I've read here on the BBS. Because they spin slower, they produce less heat.

Like most things from Tom's Hardware, this "review" has a number of mistakes, typos, inconsistencies and of course, an overwhelming tone of self-importance. I swear it's practically empty enough to be featured on Cnet.

Hitachi (formerly IBM) Travelstar have been known for a long time as the gold-crown of portable hard drives. A 7200 RPM drive isn't going to lose to a 4200 or 5400 RPM model so the drives used in this shout-out weren't selected on a level-enough playing field. The bottom line (which they didn't make a point about) is that the difference in speed among the top selections is marginal.

What's left really boils down to the other factors they didn't talk about. Total storage capacity, manufacturer's support of its products and of course price.

There are a bunch of 80GB drives that hit a very sweet spot right now. But I think the fact that Seagate stands behind their storage products with a 5 year warranty speaks volumes - along with having the best balance of speed and capacity. With a notebook you're generally limited to a single drive. An extra 20GB can make a difference.

I also hope to see a few other top manufacturers (like Hitachi, Fujitsu and Maxtor) increasing their warranty coverage soon. It's been a long time since I've seen a 5 year warranty on a drive. Good to see (though not a reason to stop making backups )

BTW, the thermal differences between these drives is likely very negligible. I believe another site has previously done some measurements in an Apple PowerBook when the first 7200 model hit the street.

Bruno

And there is still no competition in the 7200RPM drives. The only model out there is the Hitachi/IBM which has been around forever it seems like (what happened to Moore's law?).

Seagate should have a 7200rpm model soon. The 5400 100GB I picked up was actually one of the mislabled packages, claiming 7200rpm.

Bruno

Quote:
Seagate should have a 7200rpm model soon.

Toshiba has one too, but it doesn't seem to exist in the wild outside of Japan. It is only a 50Gig though and is more expensive than Hitachi's and supposedly slower as well. I've been putting off a new laptop drive purchase for almost a year now thinking that something newer/better/faster/bigger/cheaper had to be right around the corner, but strangely nothing has changed.

-Mike