Hitachi Travelstar 5K250 (250 GB, 5,400 RPM)

Knowing that the Travelstar 7K200, at 7,200 RPM, is both the fastest and one of the most efficient drives (keeping the performance level in mind) we're now eager to see how well the 250 GB Travelstar 5K250 performs. The performance benchmarks of similar products, such as Samsung's HM250JI and Western Digital's Scorpio WD2500BEVS, are promising, to say the least.

The access time of 17.2 ms isn't quite a new record for a 2.5" 5,400 RPM hard drive, but it's well within the common 16 to 18 ms average access time range. The two competitors I mentioned in the previous paragraph don't perform better either. The 5K250 reaches a maximum transfer rate of 57.8 MB/s, which is fast enough to beat the 55 MB/s of Western Digital's 250 GB Scorpio, but cannot overtake the Samsung HM250JI at almost 62 MB/s. The same applies to the PCMark05 application benchmarks, and to the power consumption results: Samsung is slightly more efficient, while the WD drive requires slightly more power. The Travelstar 5K250 doesn't have any significant disadvantage either. There is a three year warranty again.