Best HDD currently?

Ive only been keeping track of SSDs so id like some advice on this.

Im currently looking to get an additional HD for storage. Capacity of 640gb.
By best i mean fastest, most reliable and the silenter the better (i hate clicking and vibrations, so this is important to me). So which one currently would be my best bet?

 

Any suggestions - anyone been looking into this lately?

 

You want the drive to be internal or external?

My 7K750 has been dead silent so far aside from a few clocks once in a while, when the drive starts up for example. It is currently making no audible noise, the only thing i can hear is the G73's at normal idle clocks. Currently playing music off said HDD though. If you are looking at the drive for storage only, a 5400RPM might do the trick though. As long as you don't install any program on it, it will have the advantage of being even more silent than a 7200 RPM. If you want a comparison point, the original seagates in my G73 were noisy compared to the 7K750. More on the 7K750 if you're interested: http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...pgrades/604870-benchmarked-hitachi-7k750.html.

EDIT: Keep in mind that silent is somewhat subjective and you seem to be more sensitive to noise than most people.

 

Limit is 640gb in my GFs current laptop. 750gb wont work sadly and i cant find a hitachi with 640gb...
Only 7200rpm 640gb i found so far is the Samsung Spinpoint MP4... anyone have any expirience with that one?
Is there any other good 640gb HDD out there?

I should put it like this: Im buying one for my GF first, so for her the priority is speed & reliability (as for her it will be the only, system drive), if it turns out to be silent enough to not bother me too much i might get one for myself too as a replacement for the storage SSD as im running out of space too and i dont feel like shelling out huge sums again for a 512gb+ ssd.

 

I suppose your GF's laptop could take a 500GB, you'd have a lot more options or is that out of the question as well? Any reason it can't take 750GB?

Going by customer feedback on newegg, the drive seems good and quiet enough. I doubt it will achieve the performance of a scorpio black though. The scorpio blacks are noisier on the other hand.

 

Her lappy is one of those oldies with Core 2 Duo which has a limit of how large HDDs it can recognise (and that limit is 640gb, i also have another oldy sitting around that has a limit of 160gb ) and she just needs as much space as possible. Thats also the reason why im looking to buy a M15X for her (her choice of laptop, not mine ).
The performance in reviews seams close to the scorpio black so if its really silenter then it just might be the better choice anyway.
Luckily a local reseller has it in stock so if im not happy with it i can always return it without too much hassle and get the 500gb scorpio instead .

Thanks for the info, ill try the MP4 for now, if anyone remembers any other good 640gb HDD feel free to chime in.

 

7K750 highly recommended.

Buy the 750GB 7K750 and simply format it to use ~100GB for her C: drive anyways (short-stroke it for faster system responsiveness). Then, once Windows is installed, use the rest of the drive as data (and yes, she will be able to use the full capacity once Win is loaded).

Even better, if you're installing Win7 on this system:

Move the Users folder to D: drive (just need it formatted at time of install) automatically and with MS's blessing.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...rades/608752-hdd-partitioning-help-500gb.html


(My contributions start from post 3 in the above link).


Good luck.

 

That laptops Bios doesnt detect any drive bigger then 640gb... It just wont work with anything bigger than 640gb. How you format it doesnt matter...

I just read a whole page of feedback on Samsungs MP4 640gb on newegg of people reporting the drive failing after X months... was that a firmware or hardware fault if anyone knows? If its hardware ill have to avoid buying it...

 

Yes there are reports of drives failing, don't forget that people with problems are more likely to post a review. With newegg, i usually check the number of good and bad reviews altogether. Seems like there are more good reviews than bad ones. Google the issue at worst and you'll see if it is widespread or not.

 

Never heard of a BIOS that locks out anything bigger - even when presented with a small enough partition. What notebook/generation is this?

Even way back when when 32GB was the limit, you could install larger HDD's and simply format them to less than 32GB to install XP onto them (it would seem like you could install with the full capacity, but what would happen is that the XP install wouldn't continue after a reboot or two...).

 

A HP 6720s. Official spec is 80gb-160gb but i found some user on notebookcheck post that it still detected 640gb, but not 750gb. I tried a 750gb drive i had at home and it really didnt work. Bios simply didnt list anything, even though i partitioned it to 120gb.

 

Then the problem is not the 750GB drive: it is probably a matter of sector size.

512K vs. 4K Physical Sectors.

If I'm not mistaken: the 7K750 is not a 4K sector size drive: it should still work.

 

There is actually also a 640gb 7k750 if the 750gb one wouldnt work ...
It just seams to be a bit hard to get...
Oh and the 7k750 are all 4k drives...

 

What about the Seagate Momentus XT:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...e-momentus-xt-hybrid-hdd-w-built-4gb-ssd.html
Loving mine
Thinking about a fresh Win 7 install following tilleroftheearth's advice in:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...rades/608752-hdd-partitioning-help-500gb.html
If you can wait they are making a bigger one:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...eagate-momentus-xt-750gb-w-8gb-nand-more.html

 

Take a look: http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...15465-hard-drive-upgrade-results-hd-tune.html

Outstanding speeds and 5-yr. warranty; pick up a 500GB version if you need the space.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136280

Over 1,200 reviews with a perfect five eggs...

 

As secondary drive? Hitachi 7K750.

Primary drive: Seagate XT 500GB.

I wouldn't recommend WD Black as they can sometimes be noisy/vibrating.