Fujitsu 320gb 7200rpm HDD

Just when it looked like 7200rpm drives were being abandoned for the high capacity 5400s Fujitsu releases this http://www.fujitsu.com/global/news/pr/archives/month/2008/20080324-01.html

 

Nice...but they don't tell you how large the cache is or the latency. My laptop came with 2 160GB 16MB 7200RPM Hitachi drives and they are very nice. I'm sure that 7200RPM drives will still come out because even though the platters are getting denser the 7200s still blow away 5400 RPM drives, especially at seek latency.

-J.B.

 

It states the cache and seek times in the pdf on their site

The cache buffer is 16mb
and the seek times are 10.5ms (read) and 12.5ms (seek)

This is pretty impressive 320Gb on a standard 7200rpm drive.
I cant wait until Hitachi manufactures 320gb 7200 drives.
Fujitsu tends to be a pioneer in getting the largest capacity first, but their drives are just not as refined as Hitachi and seagates drives.

It ships in June from Fujitsu, so hopefully Hitachi comes out with something by then as well.

I would like to see how this drive compares to the 7K200 and the Samsung 320Gb 5400rpm drive.

K-TRON

 

Hitachi still needs to get their 320 GB 5400 RPM drives out.

 

I know, Hitachi is usually last on the bandwagon, but their products usually have a substantial 5mb/sec speed boost over other manufacturers drives.

I was waiting for the 5k500, but Samsung's 500Gb os more appealing, cause its thinner.

I emailed Hitachi, about making 10 and 15,000 rpm notebook harddrives, and they said they most likely never will.
Man I want two 15,000 rpm drives in my laptop.
Hello super fast loading times.

I estimate the price of the Fujitsu around $285

K-TRON

 

Ouch! That hurts! Be careful, he has points! And you are factually wrong with your insult as Hitachi has released (or next week). Your Ignorance only supports everything K-Tron says. Fujitsu develops technology badly to market and Hitachi perfects it (and Seagate maybe, WD totally middle of the road). Why would you want to argue with a guy who clearly knows more about many things?

Edit: Sorry K-T I am a very slow typer!

 

PP, its quite allright. everyone is free to opinions.
He simply mentioned that the 5k320 has not been released yet.
I understand that it takes a while to manufacture a large batch of harddrives, so within a month we will see some new laptop harddrives.

Anyways, its about time Hitachi revamps their 7K line, hopefully to the third generation, Maybe 7K320, since that fits pretty well.

I cant wait for toms hardware to get some of these drives, it hsould be interesting.

K-TRON

 

Sorry if my comment was interpreted as slamming anyone but Hitachi really does need to get their 5k320 out. WD, Samsung and Toshiba already have their 320 GB 5400 rpm drives out.

I personally was intending to get the 320 GB Hitachi but it's taking forever for them to release them. I needed to upgrade my laptop now and I couldn't wait any longer so I ended up with a 320 GB WD instead. I may lose a little battery life but as I said before I couldn't wait.

What Hitachi needs to be careful of is falling too far behind the curve. Suppose Dell sources WD and Samsung 320 GB 5400 RPM drives and then 2 months later Hitachi finally releases theirs. Hitachi will probably have to cut Dell a deal to get them to swap, assuming there hasn't been any problems with the Samsungs and WD's.

The only thing I'm wondering now is if Hitachi may now de-emphasize the 320 GB 5400 RPM drives if they are close to releasing their 320 GB 7200 RPM drive.

 

Are you happy with the 320gb WD? Why did you choose it over the Samsung?

 

I'm relatively happy with my 320 GB WD so far. I was running the default 120gb 5400 toshiba HD in my M1330 before. There is a bit of a reduction in the battery life but I'm pretty aggressive with my power settings and am running turbo memory so I still have decent battery life. Before with my 9 cell, my M1330 was getting around 5 1/2 hrs and now I'm getting around 5 hours. My HD tends to spin down often though as I'm running office applications a lot of the time.

My reason for going with the WD over the Samsung is gonna sound dumb. I am in Canada and had a gift card for Futureshop (owned by Best Buy very similar). I wanted to use it up so I bought the Trekstore 320 GB portable drive which happened to use the WD. The drive and enclose was on sale for 200 which I thought was reasonable for a big box store and I had a gift card for 150 of that.

Ultimately, I had though of getting the Samsung but it was around 185 and an enclose would have been another 15-20 so I figured it was a wash. I know the trade between the two is the WD has slightly higher performance with the Samsung being more power efficient. While I probably would have bought the Samsung if I hadn't had the GC (WD is about 160 locally), I don't really regret getting the WD.