Best 500GB HDD?

Hello,
I'm looking for a replacement for my hp8510p with Fujitsu 160GB HDD.
I'm looking for a 500GB HDD. I'm looking for reliability, battery life, performance - in this order, first is most important and so on. Price is not an issue.
I am waiting for Seagate 7200.4, but the more i wait, the more I start to look at WD discs.

I think battery life would not make big difference (5400vs7200), even that I demand long battery life (4h).
Fall sensor is not required because of HP 3D DriveGuard.

And - yes - I've searched and read many articles, tests, benchmarks, threads, but it was just zillion informations about that or other HDD with non-comparable results etc. I just want to hear: "Go and buy HDD: ________________"
Thanks for any help ...

 

7200.4, it's the best drive available... worth the wait

 

Waiting for the 7200rpm varient. Currently alot of stores are in Pre-Order or Out of Stock status. Dang, gotta wait till April I think. Gonna get two of those to RAID them to 1TB.

 

Be patient, young one. Your 7200.4 is on it's way...

 

yes 500gb s great new now released with 7200 rpm

 

It's not a problem for me to wait.

I hope you are judging the 7200.4 not only by its tech specs. Also the reliability looks troublesome for me.

 

Doesnt WD have a 7200rpm 500gb drive?

 

you can buy 500 GB hard disk with 7200 rpm

it is the best.

 

Not (yet).
Any other HDDs except 7200.4 to consider? Or should I just buy that one and don't think too much about it because the difference isn't worth worrying about it?

 

the 7200.4 is the only 500gb 7200rpm mobile drive on the market as of yet

However the second best 500gb drive is the WD5000BEVT, followed by the Hitachi HTS545050B9A300
Both the Hitachi and WD are 500gb 5400rpm.

K-TRON

 

That is info I was looking for Both WD and Hitachi are cheaper (I don't mind that ), both look better - I am worrying about the reliability of the seagate - maybe it isn't an issue and the things I read about 7200.4 :/ If they are less reliable, is it worth buying 7200.4?

I personally had few HDDs in desktop, Seagates failed the most. I had _very_ good experience with Maxtor. WDs didn't fail either, but I'm not as sure as for the Maxtor.

I'm really confused. Maybe reliability and maybe battery life (and price) are against 7200.4. If it is an issue, is it worth the gain of 7200rpm? Arghhh. So confused :/

 

Check out the second page of this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=364014&page=2

It compared the actual real life performance of the Hitachi 5K500.B to the Seagate 5400.6, the WD5000BEVT and the Samsung HM500LI
The results could shock you because the hitachi is the fastest of the 5400rpm 500 series drives in raw speed. However I imagine the WD is faster at loading because of the lower seek times.

The difference in battery life between the 5400rpm drives and the 7200rpm drives may equate to 10 minutes, but usually no more than that.
The Hitachi 5K500.B is the most power efficient 500gb drive, so you will get the best battery life with it

K-TRON

 

how does that compare to the one i ordered

 

The 7K320 you ordered is still superior to any 500gb 5400rpm drive in terms of performance and application loading

K-TRON

 

will the other one im looking at ordering be better once they become available to order with no wait period as far as reliableity performance and power usage

 

argh. 7200.4 still not available. Next best was mentioned the WD BEVT, should I go for it? I look for seek times only at first 20%of the HDD capacity, Hitachi and WD seems like same, RW transfer rates are very similar. So what should be next judging aspect?

 

will I notice difference if I'd switch that for BEVT? Or should I wait for 7200.4 to feel bigger difference?

 

The 7200.4 would yield a more noticeable performance increase than the WD3200BEKT. The WD3200BEVT will perform the same as yours since it is based on the same platter technology

Please note the WD3200BEKT/WD3200BEJT are 320gbb 7200rpm
The WD3200BEVT is a 320gb 5400rpm drive
Your fujitsu is based off of the same capacity platters as the 5400rpm WD

K-TRON

 

well now I know I did a good thing I didnt order 7200.4.
so next are:
"WD5000BEVT, followed by the Hitachi HTS545050B9A300"
is it still up-to-date info?

edit> i read the post about "lowest failure rates for hitachi" and also K-Tron's preference "hitachi for business usage".
so 5K500.B would be better than BEVT or not?
BEVT is cheaper of these two.

edit2>
as I see K-Tron's sig:
7K320
7K100
7K100
7K320
5K160
I assume someone here is a Hitachi fan

 

I heavily recommend Seagates 7200.4 500gb drive. I had a lot of 7200 drives in the past including hitachi 60gb, 120gb, 7k200, seagate 320gb. And this 500gb is the best BY VERY FAR. I don't hear it working, it is smooth as butter, no clicking and super fast. I don't know what Seagate did between 7200.3 and 7200.4 but it is amazing. I also run the drive at full speed and no acoustic settings. Low heat and low power consumption as well. You'll be very happy with it.

 

The Octi-tron also has Hitachi. - 15K147's in it at the moment

I am a fan of them, however I recommend what is best. If Hitachi is, then I recommend it, if Wetern Digital is, than its that, etc.

For a 500gb drive, honestly the WD5000BEVT and the Hitachi 5K500.B are neck in neck in terms of performance. John Ratsey has had both drives in his same laptop and if I recall correctly performance was near identical between the two drives, with higher power efficiency from the 5K500.B
Phil found a review on the 7200.4 on a site called "i4u"
It posted the 7200.4 against the 5K500.B and the 5K500.B was indeed faster in real life performance

However seagate has released a new firmware for the 7200.4. I have not seen any new real life benchmarks, so I cannot comment on whether the new firmware did anything.
Seagate has been very flaky with their firmware lately.
Seagate has been very quick to getting products on the market. But to be honest, bringing something out before the bugs have been ironed out isnt a great thing in my book. Lots of people have ad dead 7200.4's just on this forum alone. I like drives which are reliable, ones without firmware issues. Hitachi and Western Digital seem to be doing much better in terms of making a reliable drive
Its one of the reasons I buy from Hitachi. Reliability is more important than performance.

K-TRON

 

Go by the I/O Meter benchmarks and Vantage benchmarks on Tomshardware. That's all you need.

 

So true. And if the performance is +-10% then the power efficiency is "the key".

If I would want to buy 7200.4 I dont know which FW I would get so it's a no-no. And if "the 5K500.B was indeed faster in real life performance" then it's clear for me.


Now if I remember right... I had few HDDs in my desktop and Seagates failed 1 of 2, the 2nd one also had problems. Maxtor runs great for years and same for WD.

edit>

I'm afraid of the things cannot be benchmarked... Like reliability and so.

 

For what it's worth, I read a lot of forums and sometimes see the occasional Seagate or WD bashing.

I rarely see Hitachi bashing. Usually the opposite, Hitachi fans...

I'm perfectly happy with my WD1600BEKT though. And never had any problems with WD, Hitachi, Fujistu, Maxtor, Quantum or Seagate.

 

You know that fans will tell only the best things about "their" brand just to show how great it is because they own their products.
And my older Seagates failed, also one old WD failed too. Maybe just bad luck, don't know.

And - "rarely see Hitachi bashing" maybe just people buy less HDDs from Hitachi.

 

Like I said, I see more people raving about Hitachi...

Still I buy WD over Hitachi.

But whatever brand you buy, it can fail so you'll need to make backups.

 

How does your WD1600BEKT perform. I have WD1600BEVT.

 

I wrote a review here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=379623

 

Hmm.. your drive beats my max read by 5-10MBps.

 

Strange. can you post your HDTune in the other thread?
Also post how many background processes you have running.

 

How is that strange? I have WD scorpio blue (5400RPM) and you have WD scorpio black (7200RPM). The difference in throughtput is normal.

 

I did not understand you had blue.

 

WD1600BE KT VS. WD1600BE VT.

 

I know that. Your statement "Hmm.. your drive beats my max read by 5-10MBps." got me confused. Like there was something wrong with your drive.

PS. The performance difference between the blue and black is not only caused by the higher tranfer rate, it's also caused by the lower access times and faster I/O. This review shows the performance differences exactly. Under stress it can be as much as 100%. Not that I'm using my netbook under super stress

 

I would have to agree with K-TRON on his Hitachi stance. I've been converted to a Hitachi fan as well.

They are the most reliable notebook drives out, and it seems that Seagate has been dumbing down their quality assurance lately. I've had the most Seagate failures out of all my notebook drives, 100% of my Seagates I've owned has eventually hit the can and I've decided after 5 of them that I won't be wasting my time and my precious data on these drives. Specifications and performance wise, they are great drives but their failure rate is not acceptable.

 

Well one thing not so nice about Seagate: they're often the first one out with a drive and seem to use their consumers as beta testers. The first 7200.4 were not performing well so they made better firmware. Now they got the firmware they won't upgrade the firmware on the older 7200.4's.

 

It would be very interesting to hear these "statistics" from a big shop - how high % failures are for each HDD...
so it seems I'll go for 500gb 5k500.B hmm

 

hello! comming back - bought the 5k500b back then...
since then it got 5059 hours power on time running fine...