The Revolt of the Munchkins: 2.5" 5,400 and 7,200 rpm Hard Drives

Benchmark Table

The following table sums up and compares the huge range of specs. each vendor offers:

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Header Cell - Column 0 Hitachi 7K60 SeagateMomentusST94811A ToshibaMK8025
Capacity 60 GB 20, 40 GB 80 GB
Interface UltraATA/100 UltraATA/100 UltraATA/100
Rotational Speed 7,200 rpm 5,400 rpm 4,200 rpm
Per-Platter Capacity 30 GB p.P. 40 GB p.P. 40 GB p.P.
Seek Time 10 ms 10 ms 12 ms
Cache 8 MB 8 MB 8 MB
OutputStart 5.5 W n/a 4.7 W
OutputIdle 0.85 W 0.97 W 0.70 W
OutputRead/Write 2.5 W 2.4 W 2.3 W
Weight 115 g 99 g 98 g

Test Setup

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Test System
Processors 2x Intel Pentium 4 Xeon, 2.8 GHz
Motherboard Supermicro X5DL8ServerWorks GC-LE
RAM 2x 512 MB PC2100/DDR266Registered, ECC - Samsung
IDE Controller SB7440 UltraATA/100 Controller
System Harddrive Western Digital WD1200JB, 7.200 U/Min, 8 MB Cache
Test Harddrives Hitachi Travelstar 7K60Seagate Momentus 40 GB ST94811AToshiba MK8025GAS
Display Adapter nVIDIA GeForce4 MX440, PCI, 64 MB
Network Card Broadcom BCM5703, 1 Gb/s, on board
Operating System Windows 2000 Server SP4
Benchmarks and Tests
Access Time ZD WinBench 99 2.0
Performance Tests Intel IOMeter 2003.02.15HD Tach 2.61Winbench 99 2.0
Drivers and Settings
Graphics Driver nVIDIA 44.03
Drivers Windows 2000 Server default Chipset drivers
DirectX Version 9.0
Resolution 1024x768, 16-bit, 85 Hz refresh
Patrick Schmid
Editor-in-Chief (2005-2006)

Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.