5400 rpm hard drive recommendations...

Hi,

I've been reading up on this forum about the Z63A and I'm pretty set on purchasing one over the next week or so.

Can you recommend a good, reliable, speedy, low temperature 5400 rpm hard drive to go with the Z63A? Or are all the manufacturers pretty much making equal quality stuff?

In particular, I guess I'm worried about the HD heat problem that many have alluded to. My friend who has an IBM T41/T42 says he has no heat issues with his notebook on his lap.

Thanks for your insight,

K

 

Hitachi or Seagate.
Most of our notebooks ship with Hitachi hard drives.

 

Western Digital is cool (not in my Z63a). I have the Hitachi inside my Z63a, it gets quite warm on my lap.

 

I have a Seagate - it has been working great. They are supposedly quiet and cool.

 

Western Digital Scorpio.

Get it and get it now.

I have one and it's great, always trusted WD, but make sure you get the one with 8mb cache. I didn't , but it's still great.

Cheers,
Mike

 

I'm with Shampoo on this one.

I've actually had these 3 brands in my W3V. A hitachi 4K60 4200rpm 60GB, a seagate 5400.2 100GB and right now using a 5400rpm 80GB WD800VE.

Allow me to explain. The 4200rpm hitachi came with my pc and it was cool, but slow and only 60GB. The Seagate was hot but fast and 100GB! I got sweaty from the warmth it produced on the palmrest of my W3V and the battery time was somewhat shorter.

And my current HD, the WD800VE 80GB with 8mb cache is my top choice out of these 3(I wanted a 100GB WD but they are hard to find) because of these reasons:

WD800VE is:

*As cool as many 4200rpm
*As power hungry as many 4200rpm
*As fast as 5400rpm drives
*Only 80GB

 

I'd have to disagree with all of the above....... Seagate has been our drive of choice over the last two years and although we've sold some of the others and also tested even more that we'd never sell...... the Seagates momentous brand was built on 5400rpm drives with the heat and battery life of others (namely hitachi's) 4200rpm drives..... They've won a lot of awards for them and even today I think the performance of their 5400 and 7200 outperform the 5400 and 7200 that Hitachi make....... it's proven that they are not hot, loud, or battery hungry....

... that seagate must have been defective.

 

If my Seagate drive is defective I don't know. Porhaps, porhaps not.

The Seagate 5400.2 series is specced to use more power than the WD W800-Series. Since speccs can't be trusted silentpcreview actually measures the power drain on both these drives in 2 reviews( WD, Seagate) And they are pretty much right on par with my experiences withe heat and battery life of these drives. The WD has the same(or lower) power usage as the 4200rpm drives and seagate uses ~50% more power both in idle and when seeking.

 

There's a useful review of 12 notebook HDDs at http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/detail.php?id=92&part=full&page=1 . Draw your own conclusions.

John

 

Woah, glad I found this thread. Just picked up a WD, probably going to return it after this test. I've lived with none else but WD's in my desktop systems, but I guess that will change for notebook.

Trying to decide now...60 gig 5400rpm hitachi for $90, or 60 gig 7200rpm hitachi for $126? (newegg) Battery life isn't an issue according to that test since the 7200rpm did better in battery life than the 5400. My only concern now is reliability between the two.

 

I'd go with neither if you're looking for battery life. The 7200rpm hitachi's certainly did not do better than their 5400rpm's and if you can prove it I'll give you one of the drives......

I love hitachi and we still use some of their drives...... but Seagate gets my vote whether you want to go with 5400 or 7200......... In a desktop, give me a WD Raptor anyday....... but all of these guys have their areas...

 

Ah, ok. I'll jump on the seagate. 2 more years warranty for only $6 more over the 5400rpm hitachi isn't bad.

 

they are going to run cooler and with less power as well...

 

i'm using 60GB Hitachi 7200rpm 8MB and a 40GB Seagate 5400rpm 8MB hard drive, the both are working great. I don't feel noise and hot as well.

 

.... I used a 60gb/ 7200rpm hitachi for nearly two years on my main machines........ the only two down falls to them were obvious heat and and less battery life...... great performance, but you can't deny those issues. Looking at that compared to a seagate 5400rpm -- it makes it even worse becasue the heat and power consumption was designed more like a 4200rpm hard drive........ so although both are great drives - if you don't see a difference between the two either you have a bad seagate ----- or some magical hitachi.

 

To confuse you even more, let me add another suggestion to Justin's great Seagate suggestion.

Seagate drivers from what I've seen from all the user feedback is nothing but positive. BUT, BUT, BUT, I've been using Western Digital drives for well, almost ever since I got my first computer and all I can say is WOW.

Great harddrives that seem to never fail, in my case, and their warranty system is great. They ship you your harddrive even before they receive the old defective one, that is if you send them your credit card information, but no biggy.

I've have 4 Western Digital harddrives and all are in great shape. I have a WD800JB, a WD1600JB, a WD1600JB in my sister's computer and a Scorpio 80gig 2mb cache in my notebook.

Seagate or Western Digital, you decide.

Now that I've made it more difficult for you, what do I get?

Cheers,
Mike

 

Right. Western Digital makes the best notebook hard drives in my opinion as well. Currently, I'm using a Samsung 5400RPM - nice drive, better than I expected, but doesn't have the same quality as the WD, small clicks are still somewhat evident (when it's quiet), and it runs a bit hotter.

Compared to Hitachi, WD's are much quieter - Hitachi's click a lot and run hot. Not a bad drive at all, as a matter of fact, a hitachi would be my second choice, but they are definitely a step under a WD.

WD = virtually silent, no clicking, incredibly cool running. Best drives.

 

What ^he said

Come on Justin you know you wanna say it. Western Digital, it's the only way to go.

Thing is are you looking for a sata or pata harddrive? If you want a sata then yes go with the Seagate because of their command queuing or something or other like that, that boosts performance like nothing else. Do some reading on that.

If it's pata you're looking for then of course Western Digital.

Either way Seagate of WD you'll be happy.

Cheers,
Mike

 

Fujitsu= most reliable, runs warm
seagate = most expensive and reliable runs warmer
hitachi = not as reliable but cheap and they do have 7200 runs warmer too
wd= inexpensive, new to the market but runs coolest
samsung= very new to the market, low availability, inexpensive and least power consumption
Toshiba= stay away from these people, worst quality by far, worst reliability, expensive for what they are, extremely slow rma, most probable to develop bad sectors, data corruption, only bad things nothing good.
In last 2 years by far i have dealt more with fuji, hitachi and toshiba (which i will regret for the rest of my life).

 

If you're going to go the Hitachi 7200RPM route, make sure you are getting the newer 7K100 and not the 7K60. The speed and power consumption are better on the newer drives.

I don't know about heat issues with your model, I haven't seen any with the 7K100 in my Z33Ae. Battery life is just fine as well. There are loud and quiet acoustic modes and three power management modes that you can change between in NHC.

 

I have have a 5400 RPM Hitachi in my Z81sp and not having any issues with Hard Drive heat. The 5400 RPM drive will produce less heat then a 7200 RPM one.

 

Its beyond physics and thermodynamics. I have no conclusion at all!

 

My $.02.

Few years back. Have a Seagate. Broke right after just 1 year. At that time, the drive cost me close to $300. Called Seagate and they said I am out of luck cause they only give 1 year warranty. From then on, I decide never get another Seagate. HD won't quit just after 1 year. Don't get me wrong, I had Seagate before. I built PC since the age of XT. General speaking, Seagate HD is not expense now cause they lost the market share. That's why You can get much cheaper Seagate HD than other brand in BestBuy, Compusa....nowadays. Just my $.02

 

That is incorrect. They are infact the most expensive in the laptop drive division. If they can offer a 5 year warranty they can charge more. It does not speak volumes about their quality by no means. Offering a few year more warranty and charging more is a great way for them to make that extra buck.

 

Maybe I am lucky with laptop HDDs, I have never had a broken 2.5" drive. In older days, I had broken SCSI drives from Seagate and they honored all 5 years' (only SCSI drives and 2.5" laptop drives, 3 years for desktop HDDs) warranteed with the original purchase receipts. I usually got a replacement with bigger capacity as after some 4 years, the original capacities no longer exist at Seagate.

 

I've had best experience with Fujitsu 80 gb drives. Extremely quiet, poarticualrly in comparison with the Hitachi/IBM drives

Harold