Six 2.5” High-Capacity Notebook Hard Drives
Features
By
Achim Roos, Manuel Masiero
published
Advanced Format technology makes it possible to build 9.5 mm high 2.5” hard disks with 500 GB per platter. The result is a range of slim and speedy storage giants.
Comparison Table And Test Configuration
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| Manufacturer | Hitachi | Samsung | Samsung |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product Line | Travelstar 5K750 | Spinpoint M8 | Spinpoint M8 |
| Model | HTS547575A9E384 | HN-M500MBB | HN-M101MBB |
| Form Factor | 2.5“ | 2.5“ | 2.5“ |
| Storage Capacity | 750 GB | 500 GB | 1000 GB |
| Spindle Speed | 5400 RPM | 5400 RPM | 5400 RPM |
| Other Capacities | 640 GB, 500 GB | 1000 GB, 750 GB, 320 GB | 750 GB, 500 GB, 320 GB |
| Number of Platters | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Cache | 8 MB | 8 MB | 8 MB |
| Advanced Format | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Interface | SATA 3 Gb/s | SATA 3 Gb/s | SATA 3 Gb/s |
| Operating Temperature | 0-60 °C | 5-55 °C | 5-55 °C |
| Idle Power (Specified) | 0.8 W | 0.7 W | 0.7 W |
| Idle Power (Measured) | 0.8 W | 0.7 W | 0.6 W |
| Shock (Operating, 2 ms, Read) | 225 G | 325 G | 325 G |
| Warranty | 3 Years | 3 Years | 3 Years |
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| Manufacturer | Toshiba | Western Digital | Western Digital |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product Line | MKxx61GSYN | Scorpio Blue | Scorpio Black |
| Model | MK6461GSYN | WD10JPVT | WD7500BPKT |
| Form Factor | 2.5“ | 2.5“ | 2.5“ |
| Capacity | 640 GB | 1000 GB | 750 GB |
| Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM | 5400 RPM | 7200 RPM |
| Other Capacities | 500 GB, 320 GB, 2500 GB, 160 GB | 750 GB, 640 GB, 500 GB, 320 GB, 250 GB, 150 GB | 500 GB, 320 GB, 250 GB, 160 GB |
| Platter | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Cache | 16 MB | 8 MB | 16 MB |
| Advanced Format | No | Yes | Yes |
| Interface | SATA 3 Gb/s | SATA 3 Gb/s | SATA 3 Gb/s |
| Operating Temperature | 5-55 °C | 0-60 °C | 0-60 °C |
| Idle Power (Specified) | 0.8 W | 0.6 W | 0.8 W |
| Idle Power (Measured) | 0.9 W | 0.7 W | 1.0 W |
| Shock (Operating, 2 ms, Read) | 325 G | 400 G | 350 G |
| Warranty | 3 Years | 3 Years | 5 Years |
Test Setup
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| System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Hardware | Details |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-920 (Sandy Bridge) 45 nm, 2.66 GHz, 8 MB SharedL3 Cache |
| Motherboard (Socket 1366) | Supermicro X8SAX, Revision: 1.1, Chipset: Intel X58 + ICH10R, BIOS: 1.0B |
| RAM | 3 x 1 GB DDR3-1333 Corsair CM3X1024-1333C9DHX |
| HDD | Seagate NL35 400 GB, ST3400832NS, 7200 RPM, SATA 1.5Gb/s, 8 MB Cache |
| Hard Disk Controller | Highpoint Rocket 620 Marvell 88SE9128 |
| Power Supply | OCZ EliteXstream 800W OCZ800EXS-EU |
| Benchmarks | |
| Performance Measurements | h2benchw 3.13PCMark Vantage 1.0 |
| I/O Performance | Iometer 2006.07.27 File server Benchmark Web server Benchmark Database Benchmark Workstation Benchmark Streaming Reads Streaming Writes |
| System Software & Drivers | |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 |
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25 Comments
Comment from the forums
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arpitnathany On the western digital hard disk page the Western Digital Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT is mentioned as 750 TB please correct it.Reply
Nice article as a whole
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acyuta Good to have all the latest data in one place. Wish Dell had put in the 750GB Scorpio Black instead of 750GB Momentus in my XPS15.Reply
One minor point: good to know that i7-920 is now part of Sandybridge. Can you check???
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JeTJL Wonder how well these things survive the drop test. If they can survive a fall that a SSD can sustain then I'll be up for it. Other than that wish higher capacity SSDs become cheaper.Reply -
AppleBlowsDonkeyBalls Western Digital hard drives sound good in theory for laptops, but they're not. I would never use one unless they fix a fatal flaw.Reply
What flaw? The fact that the hard drive automatically goes to sleep (parks its head) after eight seconds of inactivity, and since this is hardwired into the firmware it completely dismisses what you set in your Power Options in the Windows 7 Control Panel. Why is this bad? Because if the HDD is inactive for more than eight seconds it needs to unpark its head, and that creates a very noticeable lag when launching applications or working with files because the process takes a few seconds to complete, not to mention it puts more stress on the HDD mechanics.
Unless it's simply for a storage drive where you don't care about performance I recommend you go with Seagate, Hitachi, or Samsung for laptop HDDs instead. -
cadder Current prices are a bit higher than what is mentioned in the article, actually pretty scary:Reply
Hitachi 750GB $140-160
Samsung 1TB $220
WD 750GB $160
WD 1TB $230