Having trouble finding good hard drive...

Any ideas?

I found ONE on NewEgg...

I was trying to see if I could find all of them, so that I could figure out best price for my needs.

Currently considering the 160GB, 250GB, and 320GB variants...AS and ASG (free fall sensor).

Any pointers? CD-W, Frys, and NewEgg seem to be...well, lacking, in this one.

 

http://shopper.cnet.com/hard-drives/seagate-momentus-5400-5/4014-3186_9-33176129.html

List of Retailers....

EDIT:
http://www.ecost.com/Detail.aspx?edp=41610489
http://www.nowdirect.com/exec/search.tsb?sp_q=ST9320320AS
http://www.onsale.com/shop/detail~dpno~7572507~descr~Seagate-MOMENTUS+5400.5+320GB+SATA.aspx
http://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/shop/d...MENTUS 5400.5 320GB SATA-Internal Hard Drives
http://www.zones.com/site/product/index.html?id=002526391

 

Get the 7200.3, it's the faster one at the moment

 

Don't but the Seagate 5400.5 series. They are terrible, I have one and the access time is 23 m/s.

 

Maybe you got a bad one...

 

I'm more concerned about power usage than anything...the 5400.5 are advertised to be lower power than most of the other drives I've found.

I'm thinking that eCost, Zones, and PC Mall are out:
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/eCost
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Zones
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/PC_Mall

NowDirect doesn't have the best track record either...I'm kind of worried since my billing/shipping addresses are different:
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/NowDirect_Inc

Some possibilities:
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1495249
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1495251

The only difference between the two is that the 2nd one has the free fall sensor. Not entirely sure if I even need that, let alone willing to pay for it.

I'm strongly considering the 5400.5 drive I found @ NewEgg. If it does not perform up to par, I'd know it fast enough to return it at no cost to me...yet another reason I support NewEgg and prefer their products that include free shipping.

 

Interesting. That would be very bad if it is true for all Seagate 5400.5 drives.

Edit: Oops you're right! Terrible acces times. Can't recommend this drive to any one. Slower acces times than Samsung 500GB.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...=2037,2040,1917,2039,1891,2041,2025,1905,2027

Very slow performance: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...=2025,2041,2039,2037,1905,1891,1917,2040,2027

Greg the Seagate 7200.3 uses a bit more power but it's so much faster that overall it is more power efficient, as shown in these benchmarks: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/notebook-hard-drive,2006-14.html

 

OnSale does have the 5400.5 much cheaper than Newegg, but if its the 'peace of mind', then I guess there was no need to figure out the best price....

 

Alright, I've heard enough as far as that 5400.5 drive goes. Seagate's 5400.5 are out.

Thanks for saving me from that one.

So now I'm looking at primarily the Seagate 7200.3 drives, and the WD drives. I'll have to go over the power consumption numbers later on today. If there isn't a big difference, I'll go WD on this one. Seagate seems to be loosing the ball...

 

All 3 320GBs - 7K320, WD3200BEKT and the 7200.3 have almost the same max power consumptions, so it depends upon which drive you can get the cheapest from Newegg....

(7200.3 < 7K320 < WD3200BEKT -> Max Power Consumptions)

Or the 320GB Hitachi 5K320 is a good drive as well, and cheap !!

 

This review shows Seagate 7200.3 uses less power than the WDs. This is confirmed by Tom's hardware here. Although the WD3200BEKT comes really close in power efficiency.

 

I have the WD 320 gig 7200 rpm drive after moving on from the 5400.5. It is great!!!

To the guy who said "maybe you have a bad drive," in your face.

 

Haha...alright, I'll see if I can place an order for a 7200.3 shortly....lemme see what prices I can find.

Tough choice here...
http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=8664899
http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=8673023

Just in case...
http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=8661612
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136197

Wait...one is out of stock at PCConnection...

Anyway, I'd prefer 7200.3. But if WD's drive is substantially cheaper...

 

Sorry for the bump, but any reason NOT to get this?
http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=8664899

 

we are unsure of if the 250gb uses two platters and three heads, or two platters with limited head movement. If the heads have limited movement than the drive will suffer with higher seek times and slightly slower operational speeds.
I believe that it has imited head movement, cause for one three sides of the platter would be 240gb of space (80x3) and that would mean that a advertised 250gb drive would format to like ~225Gb

Go with either the 160gb or 320gb variants as they will offer the full throughput of the drive.

K-TRON

 

It uses two platters and three heads.

 

Yeah, it has 3 heads, so it doesn't read one of the sides of the 2nd platter. Hence, ~250GB (I believe 83*3 GB), but similar performance to the ST9320421AS....(I don't have solid benchies )

I think the price is good and you're getting a good 83GB extra, than the ST9160421AS....

(Plus a 5-Year Warranty)

 

Hmmm...after reading the review pointed out at the top of the page...I'm thinking that WD might be the better choice as far as 320GB drives go.

From what I can see, the WD excels more in the quick R/W operations while Seagate is more for sustained transfers and they tweaked the drive for that purpose. And while the WD does draw more power, most of the time I expect it to be in idle state which has a negligible power draw difference. I don't know...

Plus the WD is $109.99 compared to Seagate's apparently $156 drive. Seagate seems to charge both tax and shipping, NewEgg's WD charges neither. The 250GB SG drive costs about the same as the WDC 320GB drive...not that I need 70GB more, but I wish the 250GB would cost less

Now I'm starting to lean towards the WD drive...

 

You'd be better off with the Hitachi 5K320, in the 320GB 5400RPM class. I guess X2P has one, and stated that the drive is pretty quiet.

 

Hitachi seems to, in general, suck more battery power than the other two brands.

 

I dunno. Tomshardware shows the 5K320 with ratings of 0.90W (idle) and 3.00W (max), as compared to the 1.10W and 4.20W of the WD3200BEVT.

EDIT: Whats up with the ST9320421ASG, is there any additional charge or a long wait ?

 

Its out of stock...I'm not going to wait around for a drive when I'm expecting my E6400 within a few days.

Hmmm...maybe you are right. But in the 320GB domain, the difference in idle is 0.05W.

 

The WD3200BEVT is a good drive, I own it myself. It is pretty quick, but never tested the impact of the HDD's power consumption on battery life.

The WD3200BEKT at newegg is considerably cheaper than the ones available at CDW and PC Connection. I have tested both the WD3200BEKT and the 7K320, and the WD Black remains cool at 40*C + Quiet. Its a pretty good drive.

You can checkout zipzoomfly as well. They normally have rebates on most of their drives.

 

Goodness...this is almost impossible to resist:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10005616

Need to look into these too...
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10007497
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10007593

 

Naw....I wouldn't go for those. I remember their HD Tune results would give 36MB/s average and the WD2500BEVS is high on power consumption just like the WD3200BEVT.

EDIT: You could look into the Hitachi 160GB 7K320. Fast -> 1 platter; 2 heads. Similar performance to the 320GB 7K320, and I remember K-Tron posted some benchies of it.

 

ZZF seems to be, according to ResellerRatings, quickly going down the can. Perhaps avoid....not sure.

I think it's gonna come down to one of these two in the end:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136197
http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=8664899

I'm already probably going to pay more than I wanted to for RAM upgrades, so I'm gonna have to set the line somewhere on the hard drive budget.

 

I have bought many items from zipzoomfly and never had a problem. Heck I bought both of my 7K320's from them, and about 50 other computer things over the years. They usually have better deals than newegg, and used to have free shipping on virtually everything, which made buying through them cheaper. Its a shame they dont have free shipping on everything under say 10 lbs anymore.

I havent written any ratings for them, and every one of my purchases have been good. I dont think people usuall write reviews when they get good service, only when bad.

K-TRON

 

Out of those 2, I would say the Seagate 7200.3.

I believe the ST9250421AS should be similar in power consumption and performance to the ST9320421AS....Its literally the same drive with just one head less.

Or, you could also checkout the WD1600BEKT at newegg....

 

Well, if I had to pick one at ZZF I'd probably go for the 250GB WDC drive...~$79!

 

Then go for the 5400.4

I had the WD2500BEVE, which was slow, and same as the WD2500BEVS but with a different interface.
At least the 5400.4 has a lower power consumption.

 

go Seagate 7200.3 .... or SSD, lol

 

Oh crud...I was looking at the previous generation WDC 250GB drive for $79. That's why the numbers didn't make sense.

 

Newegg; Peformance -> WD1600BEKT | Storage -> WD3200BEVT

 

I'm more about power consumption, with 'good enough' performance.

The major thing bothering me is that this review pegs the SG 7200.3 as having a 'split personality' as far as performance goes. Its holding me back...

 

Probably thats why they excel in synthetic benchmarks involving fairly large block sizes.
I guess the WD3200BEKT would be the best drive for you ATM. And its cheaper at Newegg.

 

Perhaps...unless SG's "changes" in their drive do not affect my usage at all...that's the next question.

I wonder...

And I'm not spending $170 on a hard drive...

 

Will affect when you're copying/moving a 100MB folder, consisting of 5-10kb files each.
But the drive will perform good and better than the others when transferring large amounts of data over a sustained period of time.
Basically depends which drive you can get the cheapest from newegg etc.

 

PCConnection has the 250GB Seagate drive at almost the same price as the 320GB WDC. I don't need the extra 70GB...so it comes down to power and performance.

 

As I mentioned earlier, the ST9250421AS is literally the same drive as the ST9320421AS, but should be with one head less. In that case, the access times will be a few decimals higher than the ST9160421AS, but the power consumption and the Read/Write rates should be similar.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/notebook-hard-drive,2006.html

 

That's what I was thinking...

Just out of curiosity...and mostly because I haven't explored this one yet...what about the 160GB hard drives?

Cheaper, and if the power and performance numbers are the same...?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136071

WDC's seems to be SATA1.5 what's up with that?

 

The ST9160421AS and the WD1600BEKT will have similar transfer rates as their 320GB versions, but lower access times, mainly due to the 1 Platter; 2 Heads configuration. In a single platter configuration, the files only have to be split between two heads, instead of four, which is more efficient, as the heads can write to only one side of the disk at a time. This normally results in lower access times in comparison to the 320GB versions (and somewhat better loading times). And there should be no difference in power consumption as well, since the drives belong to the same family/generation.

 

Eek...at $99 for the WDC 160GB..I'd rather spend the $109 for the 320GB version. What about the 160GB 5400RPM drives...having difficulty finding reviews for them...

 

I believe it applies the same for the 5400RPM drives too. Will have to look into the specific datasheets. I really won't advise you to go for the WD3200BEVT, mainly due to the high power consumption. Drives do get thrashed in vista mainly due to the auto-defrag thing.

My notebook is idle ATM, and the WD3200BEVT shows write rates between 16-64KB/s in the Resource Monitor.

 

go for the 250gb 7k320 from hitachi. Usually zipzoomfly has it for sale for like $130 after reabte. I have never had problems with hitachi, and their drives usually come out on top. I wouldnt go for a 5400rpm drive unless its a single platter 160gb or a dual platter 320gb.

K-TRON

 

It's also worth noting that the transfer rate is not uniform across the drive, and is fastest in the first/outer half of the drive. So while the average transfer rate is similar between the 160gb drives and the 320gb drives, the 320gb drives will have a higher average transfer rate for their first 160gb than the 160gb drives have over the whole drive.

In other words, if you have 160gb of data, and you are putting it on the first half of a 320gb drive, the transfer rate will be faster than if you used a 160gb drive.

That said, while the difference is significant, it isn't enormous, and I'm happy with the performance of my 160gb 7200rpm drive.

 

mistake K-tron? As been said before, go for either one platter 160GB or two platter 320GB.

250Gb is better to be avoided.

This may be true or not, I don't know. But the 160GB has lower acces times. And acces times have an important influence in overall drive speed, 25% according to Tom's Hardware. So the 160GB will make up for (some of) it.

I agree that review fo the Seagate 7200.3 is very disappointing. But if you look at the date (july 2008) I believe, that was even before the drive was available. I'm thinking it was a early or pre production drive, because other benchmarks show very different numbers for 7200.3

In HDTune it's getting the highest transfer rates and the lowest acces times of the 320GB/7200rpm drives.
In PC Mark 05 XP is is faster than all the other drives.
In PC Mark Vantage Vista same thing.

 

What? You've never looked at an HD Tune graph? You've never noticed how they all have a downward-sloping curve for the transfer rate graph?

You can easily see this phenomenon in the HD Tune graphs from one of your own forum posts: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=270564

Each graph shows the transfer rates at the beginning of the drive are nearly double those at the end of the drive.

You know what... I never thought about it before, but access times also gradually increase as you move toward the end of the drive. So, if you buy a 320gb drive and just use the first 160gb, you'll get both better transfer rates and better access times over that 160gb of data than if you used a 160gb drive.

All I'm saying is, maybe it's fairer to compare the speeds for the whole 160gb drive to the speeds for only the first and faster half of the 320gb drive. And in that case, the first half of the 320gb drive should win for both transfer rates and access times.

Of course, maybe you only have 30gb of data where performance actually matters. In that case, you only need to look at the performance of beginning of the drive, so the point I was making may not matter much, and the access times of the 160gb drive may be similar or better over the first 30gb. So it could depend on your usage to some extent.

 

Oh no, I do know that.

I was saying I am not sure if this is true: "the transfer rate will be faster than if you used a 160gb drive." In real life.

I've seen HD Tune being a bad indicator of real life performance many times.

 

How about this? I get the 7200.3, 250GB, and Free Fall Sensor all for ~$87. Or without the Free Fall Sensor for ~$81.

http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=8673031

According to Seagate, it has the two platter/three head configuration. Access times should actually be about the same, so should throughput.

Someone better give me a really good reason, or show me a WDC drive for less, or I'm getting this one.

 

Man that HDD is a steal....

I second the ST9250421ASG....

Access times should be between the 160GB and the 320GB 7200.3, whereas the Transfer Rates will be similar. All 3 drives are made from the same 160GB dense disks.