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Notebook Drives At Up To 160 GB Put Under the Microscope
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1. 160 GB In Your Notebook

Current 3.5" desktop drives offer capacities of up to 500 GB, with the 750 GB capacity point to be hit around the middle of this year. Compared to this, the 160 GB drives that are currently available for 2.5" drives seem almost small. Does this mean that 2.5" drives are falling behind?

This is not the case by any means, because there are some technical differences that need to be factored into this equation. First, 2.5" drives usually work with one or two magnetic platters, whereas 3.5" models can be equipped with up to five. Second, the platter diameter is much larger with 3.5" desktop hard drives, offering a larger total storage area. If you do an apples to apples comparison, looking at the areal density of storage, most 2.5" drives will actually do very well.

The small physical dimensions of 2.5" platters also have an impact on performance, as the highest absolute linear speed under the heads is lower with smaller discs. In addition to this general disadvantage, most 2.5" do not run at the 7,200 RPM speed that is common in the 3.5" space; they spin at only 5,400 or even 4,200 RPM.

For many years most drives were the slower 4,200 RPM speed. Yet there is a wind of change in the notebook hard drive space, because seven of the eight new drives we received for review spin at 5,400 RPM with only a single one at 4,200 RPM. The interface question remains pretty balanced: Four drives use UltraATA/100, while the remaining four are based on Serial ATA/150.

2. How To Select A Notebook Hard Drive

Two factors have a significant impact on the purchase decision of a hard drive: drive capacity and performance. Issues such as operating noise, temperature or power consumption are interesting, but usually only of great importance to a limited number of users and applications. 4,200 RPM drives are almost silent, and those spinning at 5,400 or 7,200 RPM generally can only be heard only as long as the CPU fan does not kick in.

Notebook users can choose among lots of different 2.5" drives in capacities ranging from 30 to 160 GB. The selection includes 4,200, 5,400, and 7,200 RPM models, with UltraATA/100 or Serial ATA/150 interfaces. Be careful with ultra portable notebooks, though. Models such as the Dell X1 or Samsung's Q30 family are based on tiny 1.8" hard drives. These require less power and space, but their performance is considerably worse, which you will easily notice in everyday work with such a device.

While most users consider capacity only, we strongly recommend taking a close look at performance parameters as well. Choosing a faster hard drive will make your daily work more pleasant than will having a few extra gigabytes. The somewhat higher energy consumption of faster spinning drives is usually compensated for by finishing read/write tasks much quicker. In the end, the battery run time of notebooks using high-speed hard drives is not considerably less than that of models with slower drives.

Currently, 7,200 RPM drives are available at up to 100 GB, while 5,400 RPM reach all the way up to 160 GB. If you intend to use your notebook intensively, we recommend going for nothing below 7,200 RPM. All other users should select a 5,400 RPM drive; 4,200 RPM models should be avoided as they are slower and at this point, provide little to recommend them.

3. Fujitsu MHV2120AH: 120 GB UltraATA

Fujitsu's model name and number indicates several key characteristics of the hard drive. MHV is the name of the current model family; next you will find the total number of platters (2), followed by the capacity (120 GB). The two last characters stand for certain features such as the rotation speed. Model MHV2120AH offers 120 GB and comes with an UltraATA/100 interface.

There are 40, 60, 80, 100 GB models available as well; we received the flagship 120 GB model for review. It did well in most of our benchmarks, but unfortunately its access time was only average.

4. Fujitsu MHV2120BH: 120 GB SATA

Technically, the MHV2120BH is closely related to the MHV2120AH. In fact, the only difference is the interface that is used. Model BH uses Serial ATA/150, which gives this drive a nice little advantage in the interface benchmark. In addition, Native Command Queuing (NCQ) is supported as well, though it did not seem to have much of an impact on the I/O benchmarks.

5. Fujitsu MHV2160BT: 160 GB SATA

The MHV2160BT is Fujitsu's current top 160 GB model. Though it comes with a Serial ATA/150 interface, it cannot benefit from it. Unlike Seagate's 5,400 RPM Momentus, it works at 4,200 RPM and thus does not perform very well when compared to current 5,400 RPM drives.

In addition to that, the drive uses three platters, which results in a total height of 12.5 mm, whereas most other 2.5" drives stick to the 9.5 mm height. This larger profile means that this drive cannot be used in many notebooks. However, Fujitsu's design is certainly good for external hard drive products or compact computers such as digital home systems or PVRs.

9.5 vs 12.5 mm.
6. Samsung HM040HI

Samsung's 40 GB drive HM040HI operates at 5,400 RPM, comes with an 8 MB cache and uses Serial ATA/150. Thanks to these specifications, its interface benchmark result looks promising. However, the drive's performance is still determined by its mechanical components, and the maximum transfer rate remains at 34 MB/s. In our opinion, picking the 60 GB model HM060JI seems to be the better option, since the price difference is minor.

7. Samsung HM080JI

The HM080JI is based on a per-platter capacity of 60 GB and is the fastest of the three Samsung drives in this roundup. Based on this model family, Samsung derives 60, 70, 100 and 120 GB capacity points. The Serial ATA interface helps boost the interface throughput, but cannot contribute to speeding up the drive itself.

8. Samsung HM100JC

Samsung's HM100JC is the largest drive from this manufacturer. Again, it is based on an architecture that supports 60 GB per platter; the family spans the range of 40 to 120 GB. The difference between the other models is its interface - the JC series is based on UltraATA. Performance wise, the HM100JC is quick, but it cannot match the pace of the Seagate Momentus 5400.3.

9. Seagate Momentus 5400.3

The new Momentus 5400.3 is available in 40, 60, 80, 100, 120 and 160 GB sizes. For the first time, Seagate has deployed the vertical recording technology called perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR). Thanks to this, a greater number of vertically aligned bits can be stored per square inch. Although Seagate is not the first to offer a PMR drive, it is the first company to sell a 160 GB drive running at a fast 5,400 RPM.

In contrast to Fujitsu's approach, Seagate sticks to the common drive height of 9.5 mm, so the drive can be deployed into all sorts of devices. In this context, it is interesting to see that the temperature range is pretty impressive: While other drives are specified to run in between 5 and 55°C, Seagate allows for 0-60°C.

The performance we measured is pretty impressive. While the Momentus 5400.3 cannot beat competitors that run at 7,200 RPM, it is the fastest drive of its kind. In addition to that, Seagate adds a nice 5 year warranty, which is unmatched in the 2.5" space.

10. Toshiba MK1234GAX: 120 GB UtraATA

Toshiba is a veteran when it comes to 5,400 RPM 2.5" hard drives. However, the firm did not deploy its 16 MB cache on the MK1234GAX, choosing to go for only 8 MB. The remaining technical data can be directly compared to the competitors; there is an UltraATA interface, fluid dynamic bearings, and two 60 GB platters.

Although this drive outperforms many of its 5,400 RPM competitors, it is defeated by Seagate's Momentus 5400.3.

11. Test Setup

System Hardware
Processor(s) 2x Intel Xeon Processor (Nocona core)
3.6 GHz, FSB800, 1 MB L2 Cache
Platform Asus NCL-DS (Socket 604)
Intel E7520 Chipset, BIOS 1005
RAM Corsair CM72DD512AR-400 (DDR2-400 ECC, reg.)
2x 512 MB, CL3-3-3-10 Timings
System Hard Drive Western Digital Caviar WD1200JB
120 GB, 7,200 RPM, 8 MB Cache, UltraATA/100
Mass Storage Controller(s) Intel 82801EB UltraATA/100 Controller (ICH5)
Promise SATA 300TX4
Promise FastTrak TX4310
Driver 2.06.1.310
Networking Broadcom BCM5721 On-Board Gigabit Ethernet NIC
Graphics Card On-Board Graphics
ATI RageXL, 8 MB
System Hardware
Performance Measurements c’t h2benchw 3.6
PCMark05 V1.01
I/O Performance IOMeter 2003.05.10
Fileserver-Benchmark
Webserver-Benchmark
Database-Benchmark
Workstation-Benchmark
System Software & Drivers
OS Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition,
Service Pack 1
Platform Driver Intel Chipset Installation Utility 7.0.0.1025
Graphics Driver Default Windows Graphics Driver

Benchmark Results

Data Transfer Diagrams

12. Data Transfer Diagrams, Continued






13. Data Transfer Performance

14. Interface Performance

15. Access Time

16. I/O Performance



17. I/O Performance, Continued



18. PCMark05: Windows XP Startup Performance

PCMark05: File Write Performance

19. Conclusion: One Momentus 5400.3 To Rule Them All

If you care about the performance of your notebook hard drive - and we hope you do - there are only two possible choices today. Users who want it all should go for a Hitachi TravelStar 7K100, because it is by far the fastest notebook hard drive available. Should you require more capacity, the only feasible choice is Seagate's Momentus 5400.3, because it merges 160 GB capacity with the highest available 5,400 RPM performance. In addition, Seagate offers an unmatched five-year warranty.

Fujitsu's 160 GB 2.5" drive disqualifies itself for notebook use due to its size, weight and inadequate performance. However, this drive is considerably cheaper than the Seagate model, making it a nice choice for digital home or mobile storage applications. Inside a PVR or Multimedia PC, the MHV2160BT can be of good service despite its drawbacks.

Fujitsu and Toshiba fight for the second place in the 5,400 RPM field, while Samsung has to accept being third. However, the real losers are the 4,200 RPM drives, because they are far behind. These drives are noticeably slower than the current 5,400 RPM generation, which is why we clearly recommend avoiding all 4,200 RPM models.