HGST's Travelstar 7K1000 is the first 1000 GB notebook drive we've tested with a 7200 RPM spindle speed. Is this hard disk a performance crown winner? We run our standard suite of benchmarks on it and compare the repository to 13 competitors.
One-terabyte notebook hard drives aren't exactly new. You can already find the Hitachi Travelstar 5K1000, Toshiba's MQ01ABD100, the same company's MK1059GSM, and Samsung's Spinpoint M8 HN-M101MBB. However, those four 1 TB disks share one thing in common: they trade in their speed for higher capacity. None of them spin faster than 5400 RPM. In contrast, smaller 750 GB drives can be found in both 5400 and 7200 RPM flavors.
HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies), now a subsidiary of Western Digital, set out to change this with its Travelstar 7K1000 HTS721010A9E630, a 1 TB notebook-oriented drive sporting two platters with 500 GB each, and rotating at 7200 RPM. It features a 16 MB data cache and a 6 Gb/s SATA interface. The manufacturer specifies a wide range of applications for the Travelstar 7K1000: notebooks, desktop PCs, compact gaming PCs, video devices, and mobile storage.
Combining high-density platters with a fast spindle, we're eager to see if the Travelstar 7K1000 can snatch the performance crown away from Seagate's Momentus XT, a 750 GB, 7200 RPM drive. The HGST drive steps into the ring with an immediate advantage, though: its price. You'll find the HTS721010A9E630 for as little as $80 or so online, while the smaller hybrid hard drive goes for about $100. A 1 TB version of Seagate's Momentus XT, now referred to as the Laptop SSHD, comes armed with 64 MB of data cache, 8 GB of NAND flash, and a $120 price tag on Newegg. We don't have our hands on that one yet, but are looking forward to running some more hybrid hard drive-friendly benchmarks once its lands so we can properly compare the performance of both technologies.
So, is a lower price the HGST drive's only leg up, or does its performance rival the mechanical competition, too?
- HGST's 1 TB Mobile Drive, Spinning At 7200 RPM
- Technical Data And Test Configuration
- Results: Throughput And Interface Bandwidth
- Results: Access Time And I/O Performance
- Results: 4 KB Random Reads And Writes
- Results: PCMark 7
- Results: Power Draw And Efficiency
- A Well-Balanced Drive We Can't Wait To Compare To Seagate's SSHD

I can't wait to see a review of one of the newer 5400 RPM Hybrid drives from Seagate as well as the 7200RPM 3.5" Hybrid drives when they arrive.
I just installed a 1TB 2.5" "Superspeed" SSHD into my fathers HTPC and it seems to work great.
I'm thinking about buying the 2TB 3.5" SSHD when Seagate releases it.
Typos in article: last page, not 64GB cache but probably 64MB.
Typos in article: last page, not 64GB cache but probably 64MB.
He is right though as it is replacing the Momentus XT and thus makes this comparison a bit old.
If I remember correctly, Seagate is replacing almost all of their HDDs with the SSHD tech, even desktop variants.
I would be able to agree with it being the best. I have had a lot of systems coming in with the newer Hitatchi AF laptop HDDs at work and almost every one of them are bad. I haven't seen that many bad from one brand/model for a long time. Might just be the 7mm versions of the drive but its still odd.
I guess I will have to wait and see if a lot of these die off too early before I can decide if they are good or bad drives to have. I know I wont suggest the 7mm Hitatchi laptop HDDs for now.
This isn't a hybrid drive, nor an SSD. It's a regular, run of the mill mechanical HD with a large capacity and a faster RPM.
This isn't a hybrid drive, nor an SSD. It's a regular, run of the mill mechanical HD with a large capacity and a faster RPM.
Maybe you should read the article where they can't wait to test this 7200RPM drive up against the new 5400RPM Seagate Hybrid drives. I was just pointing out where hybrid drives will look pretty terrible on synthetics like random read tests, they will excel at usability so the benchmark suite used should reflect that.
See the specifications tab on this HGST web page:
http://www.hgst.com/hard-drives/mobile-drives/9.5mm-mobile-hard-drives/travelstar-7k1000