Can you recommend a good HD for my Latitude?

Am getting a new E6400 with their base 80GB model and would like to upgrade to a 250GB @ 7200rpm.

Recommendation on a particular brand/model?

 

What is the exact model of your harddrive. I know a few shipped with the 80gb 7200rpm samsung drive, which is still one of the fastest harddrives on the market.
Please download hdtune, and let us know the model of your current harddrive. The model is listed in the pulldown menu.

Your system uses 9.5mm thick 2.5" SATA laptop drives.
You can upgrade up to a 500GB 5400rpm or 500GB 7200rpm drive if you like.

for the best bang for your buck, you should look into the 320gb 7200rpm drives.
The Hitachi 7K320 can be had for about $60-80 on newegg/zipzoomfly
(quietest, fastest operating starting performance among 320gb 7200rpm drives)

the WD3200BEKT can be had for about $80-100
(Good balance between power and fastest application loading time among 320gb 7200rpm drives)

the Seagate 7200.3 can be had for about $80
(The most power efficient 320gb 7200rpm drive)

If you want a 500gb 5400rpm drive, the drive to get is the Western Digital WD5000BEVT.

K-TRON

 

Wow K-Tron, thanks for all that info.
I do not have the laptop yet, I just plan on ordering it with the lowest model they offer and then swapping that out for a new one.
I dont think I need 320gigs but if its that inexpensive then maybe I would consider.
Does all that you have written above equally apply to the 250gb models? I would say I am looking for the best balance between speed and performance.

 

Aren't those the same thing?

 

The 320Gb 7200rpm drives consist of two 160GB platters.
The 320gb drive has 4 heads, so both sides of each platter are being used.
On the 250GB model, their is still two 160Gb platters, however only three heads are used, giving you a 250GB capacity.
The 250GB model will perform pretty much exactly the same as the 320GB model.

Seagate has released a 500GB 7200rpm drive based on two 250Gb platters. It will be faster than the 320gb drives because it has a higher data density. However seagate has been having lots of firmware issues across the boards, and already a few nbr members said their drives died.

So that being said, it is still best to look at the 320gb series drives mentioned above.

Look around online, zipzoomfly usually has the Hitachi drive on sale for $60 after rebate. Newegg and zipzoomfly usually have excellent harddrive prices.

I got my 160GB 7K320 when it first came out or $110 a drive. I have three of them. All of them are very quiet and they are great performers.

K-TRON

 

Oops, I meant speed and power efficiency

Thanks again; the 7K320 sounds like the best deal. By the way, how noisy is it? And how much more power would it use than say the WD and Seagate?
Am trying to gauge the differences in power consumption...

 

I have the single platter version of the 7K320, so please note that my drive has 2 heads and one platter instead of the 2 platters and 4 heads the 320gb version has.
Hitachi has a three piece cover on their drives, so it dampens the noise more than the competitions one piece cover.

All of my 7K320's are exceptionally quiet. I cannot hear them at all.
As far as power consumption, the WD and hitachi are pretty much the same on power efficiency. Seagate has a lower power consumption, but it will not be a big difference. You are talking like 5 minutes maximum difference in battery life over the good 7hours of battery life your system should get,

I would personally buy another 7K320 if I needed another.

But if I were you, just look for the best deal on the Hitachi 7K320 or the WD3200BEKT


K-TRON

 

You've put up a lot of really useful info on hard drives, K-TRON, and I just wanted to say that I appreciate it.

Assuming similar performance among the three 320GB 7200 RPM drives you mention here, which one would run the coolest? I am looking for a second hard drive for a ThinkPad T500, and coupled with a T9400 CPU, I'm interested in managing the heat as well as possible, but not at the sake of the performance hit I'd take from going with a 5400 RPM drive instead. If they will all tend to run at close to the same temps, I'll probably go with either the WD or Hitachi. I think the reliability of Seagate parts is just a little suspect right now.

 

All of the 320 and 250gb 7200rpm drives will run about the same temperature.
The 80GB and 160Gb versions will run cooler. This is because the 320gb and 250gb models have 2 platters, with 4 and 3 heads respectively.
The 160gb and 80gb models have only one platter, with 2 and 1 heads respectively.
Having one less platter does not effect performance, since the data density is still the same. Having one less spinning disc greatly reduces vibration, and decreases the amount of turbulence in the drive. Less moving parts means less friction, so single platter drives will yield lower temperatures.
I have the 160gb single platter 7K320 and just reading the S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics, the highest it ever ran was 126F, which is below the thermal threshold of the drive. Harddrives are good until 60C, or 140F

After running virus scan it usually gets to 123F, but drops back to around 110F which is common usage temperature.
I would expect the 2 platter version to run about 5-10F hotter than the single platter drive.

K-TRON