Comparison of 320GB 7200 SATA notebook drives

Hello,

I just got a Sony SZ780 with a 200GB 7200RPM drive installed, which is good, but since I see now that one can buy a 320 GB 7200RPM drive for not much more than $100, I'm tempted to put in one of those, before I do a clean install of the OS (not yet decided on XP or Vista), install all my apps, etc.

In looking online, I see that three major hard drive companies already have 320-7200 drives--Hitachi, Seagate, and Western Digital.

What factors are there to consider in deciding which of the three to buy?

Are they all about the same? (If so, I guess price would be the main deciding factor. The WD drives seem to go for the lowest price--about $100, in OEM version.)

Or--are there differences? Have there been side-by-side comparison reviews? Although the specs are similar, are there differences in performance?

How about issues like durability, battery comsumption, heat, noise, etc.?

Anyhow, I would appreciate any information that people have to share comparing these drives, and any links to articles, etc., that compare them.

Thank you.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/notebook-hard-drive,2006.html

Just go for the cheapest HDD. All 3 are good. All 3 may cause problems. All 3 may fail.

7K320 is for 70 Bux. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=304165

 

In saying that they may cause problems and may fail, do you mean in the sense that any hard drive could possibly have problems, and could possibly fail?

Or are you saying that these 7200-320 drives are more prone to problems and failure than other drives?

Are they equal in failure rate and problems?

What warranties do they carry? All the same?

 

Yup. All Mechanical Drives are prone to failure, esp if not treated well.
In the H/W forum, I have heard of issues regarding all 3 drives.

Nope

Nope

7K320 - 3yr
7200.3 - 5yr
BEKT/BJKT - 5yr
Though warranty will depend upon Retail/OEM/Vendor/Region.

 

Any mechanical drive is prone to failure because it has moving parts. However most laptop drives will last 3-5 years if you tae care of your laptop and you do not drop it. I have had laptop drives last 6 years, all it takes is a little care and precaution when handling the laptop.
If you drop your laptop all of the time, it would be best to get a drive with a free fall sensor or a SSD.
I believe on the desktop line, the manufacturers are all going to 5 year warranty, to create a better stand against SSD's.
On the laptop line Andy has the values right, except he states WD twice.
Samsung, Toshiba, Fujitsu and Hitachi have a three year warranty.
The WD black have 5 year, and teh seagate have 5 year warranty. the wd blue and scorpio have three year.

I have the Hitachi 7K320 and I am very happy with it.

K-TRON

 

Well, I don't drop my laptop all the time ;-), in fact I hope never to drop it.

However, it's good to have as much protection as possible, against any possible mishap. So, the free fall sensor sounds like a good idea.

Which of the three drives has that feature? Is the drive still the same size with that feature added, to fit in the same notebooks? Is there any trade-off to that protection, such as lowered performance?

 

Seagate 7200.3 -> Models that end with G -> ST9320421AS G

WD Black --> BJKT Models -> WD3200B JKT

Drives are the same size, and will fit the regular 9.5mm slots. No trade-off, but somewhat higher price.

I don't know if the Hitachi has any FFS or similar, but it has some of its own features.
Hitachi TrueTrack Technology
Thermal Fly-height Control (TFC) Technology

Also, the Hitachi 7K320 Series has a better shock tolerance than the Seagate and WD.

 

The drives perform the same, the only difference is that their is an accelerometer in them, to detect any sudden gravity changes inside the drive.

I have the 7K320 and actually from looking at it in comparison to the 7k200 and 7k100 they look the same, but their is one difference, which upsets me. The 7k320 sticker is a bit loose, and i was wondering why. Actually its strange because the sticker dips down if you press on it. I was curious, because it almost looked like the sticker was the only thing covering a hole.
So i used a magnet and touched the drive their and it stuck, so it seems that hitachi has used a two or three layer thick cover. I think they did this to decrease the sound produced of the drive and to increase the systems shock capacity. Obviously more material on the top of the drive will resist a shock more than a single thickness cover.

AT first I thought it was bad, but it is actually a good feature.

K-TRON

 

Interesting. The Seagate web site, in describing the ST9320421AS, lists "G-Force Protection available". It is not clear what they mean by "available", it is listed as a feature of that drive. Not clear at all one has to buy a different model, to get that feature. The G model is not listed.

I then did a Froogle search for Seagate ST9320421ASG. Several vendors listed the model, but not one had them in stock. Some listed it as "special order".

It sounds like the G-force model hasn't actually come out yet, and who knows if it will? Listing the feature as if it belongs to the regular model (with the word "available" used as an out), is actually rather deceptive.

 

It is listed in the Datasheet.

Checkout these Retailers, it had been released quite a while ago.

 

Well, no one seems to have the G model in stock now, although many have the plain one.

In fact, I think it's strange that they make it a separate model. If it gives added protection, with no negative trade-offs, other than a slightly higher price, same compatibility, etc., why not make them all with that feature, rather than having two separate models?

I had the plain Seagate in a shopping cart at TigerDirect, almost ready to check out, for $90. Now that I know about the free-fall feature, and see that the WD model that has it is available, for about $106, I may get that one instead. Worth it to pay slightly more for enhanced security. Yet, I recall one review that said the Seagate was the best of the three drives. So now I'm a little undecided.

 

The WD is good at $106, difference in performance between Seagate, Hitachi and WD is nil.
Or you can look into the Seagate 7200.3 250GB G-Model.

 

"Special order" usually means that they don't carry it in stock, but will order one for you when you buy it from them.

In general though, I've found that WD drives are easier to find in stock than Seagates. Seagates tend to be cheaper though.

 

Hello Everyone,

I purchased the Seagate Momentus ST9320421ASG 7200.3 with G-Force. $135 per drive. I am very happy with them. Originally I had the Fujitsu 5400RPM 80GB drives. Here are my before and after results. Both in RAID 0 mode





Thank you,
Monnie

 

An interesting take on the freefall sensor subject:

I discovered that my new Sony Vaio VGN-SZ780 notebook has a HDD sensor built into the notebook, which I assume is something similar to freefall sensor.

In the Vaio Control Center, Status Monitor, I see HD Protection is turned on. If I click on settings for that, there is a checkbox called "activate hard disk drive protection", and that is checked by default. Then it says 'select protection level", description "select the sensitivity against shock hazards", and there is a choice of three settings:

Low (Performance Mode)

Mid (Default Mode) (set to by default)

High (Protection Mode)

Now I wonder--since it seems that HDD shock protection is already built into the computer, would it give one added protection to have such a sensor built into the HD as well? Two sensors better than one?

If not, I guess having it in the HDD as well, could let me turn off the protection in the computer, saving the memory of having the driver run all the time? (I assume the one built into the HDD does not need a software driver to control it. Correct?) My guess is that having such protection built into the HD itself is probably better than having it in the computer. Is that correct?

Also, before I asked if there was a trade-off (other than financial) in having the shock protection in the HDD, and the answer was "No". However, when one looks at the control panel for the shock protection in the computer, there appears to be a trade-off there. The setting with the lowest protection, is called "performance mode", implying that more protection equals less performance. (I assume then, still better performance if the shock protection is disabled completely.) Is the shock protection, in that case, actually slowing down the drive?

Or is that performance hit only caused by the computer-based shock protection, without a corresponding performance affect from protection built in to the HDD? (In that case, good to get the HDD built-in protection, and turn off the computer one.)

If there is also a performance hit with the HDD built-in protection, that would explain why the manufacturers build that protection in a separate model. They make sure to send the one without the protection to the reviewers, if the protection would lower their scores. (While letting it be known, that protection is "available".) Also, if the protection slows down the drive, clear why they would want to make that optional, rather than universal.

Thoughts? Comments?

-------------------
P.S. In looking at the driver package on the Sony site for the driver for its built-in HDD protection, the package is listed as being for both Vista and XP, but it says that it won't work as well in XP. "WARNING!: For computers optimized for use with Windows Vista® operating system, some functionality will be lost under Windows XP operating system."
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNSZ780&upd_id=3366&os_id=29

I don't understand, why that would be the case, or whether it's just an attempt to collaborate with Microsoft, in discouraging XP use, and encouraging Vista use.

I haven't decided yet whether to install XP or Vista on the new HD, so if I choose XP, the HDD protection built into the computer may not work as well, if that statement is true.

 

Here is the conclusion of the review (which I think I found from this thread), that gives a slight edge to the Seagate:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/notebook-hard-drive,2006-17.html

However, the WD comes in only slightly behind it.

 

True, but according to this review the WD is quite a lot better:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/15079/4

According to most synthetic benchmarks posted here on these forums the Seagate comes out fastest though.

 

The Techreport comparison paints a slightly different picture:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15079/15

The debate as to which is the fastest 320GB drive has been the subject of a number of threads on this site. In the end I suspect that in the real world it might be hard to tell the difference in performance between the WD320BEKT, the Seagate 7200.3 or the Hitachi 7k320.

I went for the WD320BEKT based on reports along with its price and availability. The BJKT, with free fall sensor, wasn't readily available, so I am relying on the built in HDD protection in the Sony SZ.

 

drummo is correct, all of the 7200rpm drives are similar in their real life performance, to teh extent we couldnt tell the difference between one another.
If its my 7K320 performing at 140mb/sec, or a 7k320 showing 60mb/sec, they all perform the same in real life. Software tests are wrong in many cases. The same exact drive performs at 63mb/sec in my dell e1505, and in my d900k, it performs at 125-145mb/sec.

You made a good decision with the latest generation 7200rpm drives, they are very fast.

K-TRON

 

You should consult w/ the sony guys for some tech info. Maybe all of the three you listed would have some compatibility issue.

 

what?
why on earth would we want to talk to sony techs?

If you have a sony laptop, and the tech said these 7200rpm drives are incompatible, than he is relaying false information.

K-TRON

 

I think he is referring to my long post a few back, regarding that I found that my Sony notebook has built-in hard drive shock protection, but that it appears (from the control panel that controls that) that it takes a performance hit. (Please read the post for details.) (I'm sure he is not saying that Sony notebooks are incompatible with 7200 drives. As I said, mine came with Sony factory-installed Hitachi 200GB 7200 HDD.)

In any case, everyone responded to my last post before this one, where I mentioned that a review gave a slight edge to the Seagate, and seem to have missed the long post right before that one. However, I would really appreciate some insight and opinions into the issues raised in that long post, regarding the built-in Sony shock protection, and whether it would still make sense to get one of the drives that has that feature. I hope some will read that post and respond. Thank you.

 

Look at my long post about that above, regarding the built-in HDD protection of the Sony SZ, which is my model as well.

Do you notice any performance difference, based on how you set the HDD protection level on the SZ?

 

You won't really push the HDD to 100% all the time, similar to synthetic benchmarks. In terms of real-world performance, you won't notice a difference between the 3 7200RPM drives.

I tested the 7K320 and the WD3200BEKT, and there was no difference in performance I noticed.

So go for the cheapest, G-force/FFS drive you can get.
The Hitachi 7K320 is a very good drive as well.

 

I doubt that there would be any noticeable impact on HDD performance but haven't actually checked.

My HDD protection is currently set at maximum an I will change this and run HD Tune to see if I get any different results with the different settings.

 

maiki, I have run HD Tune on my SZ with HDD protection set at maximum and HDD protection turned off. As I suspected there appears to be no difference in the HDD performance between these two settings as the following results show.

The first is with protection set at max, the second with protection off.

 

Hmm--I wonder why then, that Sony lists the lower protection setting as the "performance setting"?

In any case, having that shock protection built into the notebook, I would still like some insight into the question, regarding whether it would be a good idea to buy a HDD that has its own shock protection?

Would that give extra protection, having the feature in both the HDD and the notebook? Or would they conflict with one another?

More likely--would the fact of having the protection in the drive itself, enable me to not install the driver and app for the notebook protection (after my clean install), and just use the protection in the HDD? That could save memory, CPU, and resources, one less app and driver running all the time. Is the protection built into the HDD as good or better than that in the notebook?

Or--does the protection in the HDD also require some kind of software control app, that comes on the HDD? (Anyone here using a drive that came with the shock protection feature, who could answer that?) If the drive protection also requires a software control app running all the time, then I might as well stick with the Sony protection, if it's as good, which I already have, and spend less on the HD. (I certainly wouldn't want two different shock protection apps and drivers running!)

Most of these questions were asked in a prior post in this thread, but not answered yet, so just recapping.

I would appreciate some insight into these questions. Thank you.

 

In case anyone is interested, I ended up purchasing the WD drive with FFS.

I would have bought the Seagate one, but no one had the FFS one ("G-Force") in stock.

The best price I found on the WD one with FFS was $102.99, through Onsale.com. (I got there through Froogle, don't know if that affects the price.) (They actually had the Seagate one with FFS listed for $93, I think, but did not have it in stock.)

Total BS with them about shipping price though, which almost pissed me off enough to cancel the order. They advertise "free shipping for orders over $49. So, I assumed I would not have to pay for shipping.

Yet, they charged me $9.99 for shipping, and CA sales tax as well. Then they have a mail-in-rebate to get your $9.99 shipping charge back, of course with a complex form and rules, to discourage people from actually sending for it. That is totally bogus, IMO.

By the way, one area in which Seagate has it totally over WD is in customer service. If the Seagate driver with FFS were available, that would be enough of a reason for me to have ordered Seagate instead, not to mention the fact that it would have cost less, and that one review gave it the edge.

Explanation--I called both Seagate and WDC tech support this morning, to ask a couple questions about the FFS feature. In calling Seagate, I was connected right away to a knowledgeable tech rep, clearly familiar with the products, probably right in their headquarters here in the USA.

With WDC, I had a long wait to talk to anyone, and was finally connected to someone in Asia, whose English was not good, who did not understand what I was asking, and who seemed totally unfamilar with the product. I knew much more about it than him. A total waste of my time.

I would rather support companies that respect their customers. But no one had the Seagate with FFS in stock, the WD drive also had a very good rating, so I bought it, as well as a 2.5 SATA II external USB enclosure, to test the drive out with, format and partition it, etc., before installing it in the computer. ($16.95, Macally brand, also from Onsale)

 

maiki, despite your problems with the WDC support staff, I think you will be happy with the WD HDD - I'm certainly happy with the WD320BEKT.

Hopefully I'll never need to contact support and, if I ever do, lets hope the experience here in Australia is better than you had.

Post some results when after you install it.

 

I sure hope the FFS doesn't cause any problems, and that I end up wishing I bought one without it, for which I could have bought the Seagate (without FFS) $15 or so cheaper.

What if the FFS malfunctioned, and locked the HDD when it wasn't supposed to, and you can't use the computer at all, with a locked HDD? (If the Sony notebook FFS controlled by software malfunctioned, I could turn the feature off. Not possible to turn off the FFS built into the HDD, AFAIK.) (HA. I didn't think of that, before purchasing it. Has anyone heard of that happening? I guess these drives with built-in FFS are too new a feature, to know if they have problems long-term yet. Perhaps that's why the manufacturers are only putting them in some of the drives of those models now, not all, probably many less (judging by availability) than those without the FFS--not sure if there will be problems! I certainly hope there won't be!)

 

I would think that FFS inside the harddrive will be quicker to lock the heads than an external one. Every ms counts.

Not sure though. Just speculating.

 

Well, think about it this way. The OS hangs and you drop the notebook at the same time, the Shock service from Sony may not do its job then. Whereas the Shock thing of the HDD is coded into the HDD's firmware, which will definitely work.

 

I agree. That's why I went for that. I think the FFS built into the HDD will provide better protection than the one built into the notebook. Furthermore, I don't like the idea of having the software driver and app running all the time, that is necessary for the Sony protection. (In fact, even if I didn't get the FFS drive, I would most likely turn off the Sony app and driver, not have it load automatically. I try to minimize autoruns.

However, my worry in the last e-mail was, something I didn't think about before the purchase. What if the FFS on the drive malfunctions, and parks the hard drive when there has been no shock or drop, when I am using it, and does not unlock it? That would be a real pain in the neck!!!!

Anyone heard of that happening, to someone who has a FFS drive? I think the practice of putting FFS directly into hard drives is so new, there might not be such incidences yet, but what about in a few years, when the drives are older and more worn? It would be exasperating for the head to park while I am using it!! (If that happened to the Sony-software-driven FFS, I could probably fix it via software. But with the drive FFS, I would have to take out the drive, and hopefully there would be some kind of switch on the drive to unlock it. )

Let's hope that never happens!

 

Guess what! I'm now getting the Seagate drive after all!

As I wrote, I ordered the WD drive from Onsale.com (a division of PCMall), whose website said they had it in stock. (While they listed the Seagate as backordered.)

Today I received an e-mail from them, that the WD drive was backordered. A phone call confirmed that they had neither drive in stock, and have no idea when they will arrive.

I spent hours on the phone with different deparments of theirs today, and got nowhere. It appears that they alraedy charged my credit card for the full amount, of an item they do not have. I may have to dispute it directly with my credit card company, as they seem totally messed up at that company!

My advice--never even think of purchasing anything from Onsale.com. Probably best not to do so through PCMall or MacMall either, part of the same operation.

Anyhow, I found a different vendor, Valleyseek, that says it has the Seagate one with G-Force (FFS) for $94.57, and saidd they have 21 in stock. Anyone here done business with them?

http://www.valleyseek.com/product.action?itemID=119947

I called to confirm, and he said that yes, they do have 21. So I ordered one. I hope they really have it. (I don't know why the drives with FFS are so rare?)

Shipping was $11.33. With CA sales tax added, total around $110.

Let's hope it comes!

 

congrats! i'm sure you'll be happy with the seagate. it performs very well.

 

Unfortunately reseller ratings does not have any review of the company, so we dont know if the company is legit or not.
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/ValleySeek

K-TRON

 

At least the charge was through Google checkout, so there is some recourse if there is a problem.

Doesn't look like they have a good return policy, but it's unlikely I would return the drive, unless clearly defective.