HDD Recommendations?

My buddy is looking for a new notebook HDD, this will be used in a Mac, and will replace an old Fujitsu 120GB 5400RPM Drive.

I'm looking for something with the following specifications:
I've been reading a little about how HDDs are starting to have perpendicular magnetic writing, and I really would like something with that for a little bit of future proofing. Also I need something either in the 5400 or 7200 RPM flavors, with a capacity of 500GB which ever can do that. Fast write speeds are welcome, as is low heat output. Power consumption isn't much of a problem, but only if it is a power sucker. Also a 32mb+ cache, the current cache is like 8mb so :/


So in short:
5400 RPM+
The largest cache possible
Fast transfer speed
500GB Is the most important****
perpendicular magnetic writing<-- Whatever that is.

Thanks for any suggestions you might have.
Let me know if there is any good reading material for spinners. I'm a SSD guy so

 

Have a look here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4788039#post4788039

 

perpendilar recording in short is jush how the data is aligned in the platter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpendicular_recording
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/recording_head/pr/index.html

what this means for you is increase in areal density per platter, which increases both hdd space and also its performance, because the disc platter has to spin less to get the data, because the data is much more denser.

in no particular order;

seagate
western digital
hitachi

is the one i would pick.

 

Until we see more results for the 7200.4, it seems that Seagate may be pushing just beyond the limits of current technology.

I've just replaced a WD5000BEVT with the Hitachi 5K500.B which has low power requirements and is quiet, without any obvious performance problems.

John

 

Oh so PMR is old tech?
okay then forget that.
Anyways this is for a macbook, and his current HDD is quiet, and dosen't produce too much heat.
Conversely my WD Scorp Blue 5400 spinner cranks out 50-64 Celcius during my daily activities. I have a HP DV4 which the CPU likes to get upto 105c randomly..

Anyways, I'm concerned with the increased heat of the 7200 RPM drives.. These days, is the performance difference between a 7200 and a 5400 drive that different? Or the power consumption either?
I'm just looking for a faster, bigger, replacement that produces the same or less heat and eats the same or less electricity than that four year old drive he currently has.

 

Hi John
What do you think what is better:
WD3200BJKT or 5K500.B ?
Thnx

 

Performance-wise, it is very close. See some discussion at the end of this thread. However, the 5K500.B definitely uses a bit less power. I reported some comparative results in one of these threads. I measured the 5K500.B as a maximum power drain of 2.3W whereas the WD5000BEVT was 2.6W for the same conditions (see start of thread linked above). Something I also noticed was the power drain of the 5K500.B dropped noticeably during the sequential read test whereas on the WD it stayed near maximum.

So, if heat is a concern, then I think the 5K500B is the better choice. And, while Seagate claim that the 7200.4 uses only slightly more power than a 5400rpm HDD, I would assume that they are making comparisons with the previous generation until I see independent measurements.

John