Difference between Travelstar 5K500.B, 5K500 and E5K500

Assuming I get the 500Gb versions of each, what's the differences between each? Which is the newest one released? The hitachigst website gave some very vague descriptions

 

I believe the 5K500 is 12.5mm in height and will not fit in most notebooks (which use 9.5mm). The 5K500.B is the newest, I believe, and is in the standard 9.5mm height. Don't know about the E5K500, but I think it has built in encryption.

 

Ahh.. Indeed, the 5K500 is 12.5mm. Does the encryption make the drive slower? How does it work?

EDIT: I found out the E5K500 is 12.5mm as well. Darn. Then there's no point comparing differences. Thanks for the help, sgogeta4.

EDIT2: Does Hitachi HDs come with international warranty?

 

The E version of the HDD is Enhanced availability and is intended for servers running 24/7. The maximum specified temperature may be lower. However, Hitachi list a self-encrypting version of the 5K500.B.

Check Hitachi's warranty page. Often, the HDD warranty is direct with the manufacturer with the time from date of manufacturer.

John

 

The 5K500 is a 12.5mm thick drive based on three 166GB platters revolving at 5400rpm
The 5K500.B is Hitachi's revisited 500gb 5400rpm drive. This drive came out a few months ago with its twin 250gb platters revolving at 5400rpm.
The 5K500.B was designed for power efficiency and it does just that. It is more power efficient than the 5400.6 from seagate and the WD5000BEVT from Western Digital. John Ratsey has done power tests in his external harddrive and he stated that the 5K500.B was indeed more power efficient.
Member Kaltmond has both a 5k500 and a 5K500.B He made comparative tests in my 5K500.B thread.
The E5K500 is designed for rackmount systems which are to be running 24/7. The "E" series drives tend to use a bit more power since there firmware is set to run at optimal performance all of the time.

There may be a E5K500.B coming soon if you are interested.

All new Travelstar drives from Hitachi come with a 3 year warranty which is valid anywhere in the world. The warranty is based off of the serial number on the drive.

As far as overall performance goes the 5K500.B is the fastest 500gb 5400rpm drive, which is actually faster than the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 in IOPS as stated in the review from I4U's website Phil posted

K-TRON

 

Well, power efficiency isn't that important for me, since I usually keep my laptop connect to the AC 99% of the time.

But the current (E)5K500 ones are 12.5mm. So that's out of the picture. Any idea when the E5K500.B is coming out?

The only problem now is that the only proper review of the 7200.4 is in I4U. And without other reviews, I can't make a decision of the seagate. It's not available till June, right?

So that leaves the WD or the 5K500.B currently. Which is a tough tough decision.

As for the warrantly, if I bought it in Australia, I can send it to a Hitachi repair place in Singapore, for example?

 

Never buy the E series... I had the chance of using both E7KXXX and 7KXXX series for long time and the E7K series were running considerably hotter than the 7K series. (During defrags, E series were hitting 56-57C.)

(I am assuming that the same thing holds for today too. The E series had no power management before. )


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