Hitachi 7K200 outperforms 320GB WD HDD

I've seen here and on other forums that people believe 320GB disks are just as fast as 7200rpm disks. Well this is true in some cases but not in the case of the Hitachi 7k200 200GB, according to this test at Storage review.




http://www.storagereview.com/Hitachi250WD320.sr?page=0,2

 

Yea, but in those cases, the drives' performance is usually being compared in MB/s, not IOPS.

 

Right... That would be the next page where the result is the same;

http://www.storagereview.com/Hitachi250WD320.sr?page=0,3

 

Benchmark results are best considered in the context of other benchmark results. Try this.

All I say is that performance is similar.

John

 

Yep,I want a user review , I don't really trust single marketed benchmarks..

 

If you use synthetic benchmarks performance is similar.

If you use application benchmarks the 7k200 is faster.

I go by application bechmarks because they are a better indicator of real life performance.

For example: StorageReview.com Office DriveMark 2006- A capture of VeriTest's Business Winstone 2004 suite. Applications include Microsoft's Office XP (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, and Project), Internet Explorer 6.0, Symantec Antivirus 2002 and Winzip 9.0 executed
in a lightly-multitasked manner.

Of all the benchmarks Tomshardware uses, there is only one that uses real life performance; it's the Windows XP Startup Performance. The 7k200 is the fastest.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

well it doesn't really matter because it might beat it by a few mb/s but you get 120gb more storage, seems stupid getting something which performs on par and produces much less heat, gives more battery life and more space

 

It performs better not on par. According to Tomshardware charts the WD 320GB uses more power than the Hitachi 7K200.

http://www.storagereview.com/Hitachi250WD320.sr?page=0,7

 

I agree with Phil.
I tested both the 7K200 and the 5K320 in the same laptop and the 7K200 is indeed a bit faster especially when working with huge numbers of small files.
I still ordered the 320GB WD drive because I value the 120GB increase in size more than performance but if you're looking for sheer speed and performance the 7K200 is still faster!

 

Doesn't the Hitachi 320GB beat the WD? So why are we not comparing Hitachi to Hitachi? And yea we all know the 7200 wins in RA. I don't do a lot of large file transfers so where 320GB hangs with the 7200's I would not get the benefit. That said I like the 320GB @5400 at this point. Size is great and performance is acceptable.

 

Well, I would go with the additional space over the like 2% increase in speed. I have two 7k200's in my lappy in raid 0, and I still want more speed. I only got the 7k200's because the largest 5400rpm drive at the time was 160gb. Once I get my system back from paint, and when I get my next paycheck I am going to get two velociraptors for my lappy. I eagerly await to see if the veloci works in chrisvolker's lappy. If it does, I am definitely picking up two for my laptop

K-TRON

 

I'm glad someone finally cleared this up, I was getting sick of all the "320 GB 5400RPM is just as fast as 160GB 7200RPM"

 

I can't wait for the Velociraptor to arrive and hopefully everything works but you want to install two?
How are you going to cope with heat?
Active fan cooling might be sufficient for one drive but two, I don't know.
But if you would get it to work...

I guess the world needs pioneers like us

 

Ummm, but it is....

 

It really depends on what brand and model you're comparing.

 

Here I have a WD 320GB 5400rpm drive. And a 160GB 7200RPM drive. I will do some tests with HDTune probably by the end of the week and post them.

 

I dont think anybody ever said that the higher density lower rpm drives were faster, but that they were similar, and of much greater value.

Chances are you can get the 320gb for the same price as the 200gb for similar performance, why deny yourself 120gb of space?

Raw read speed is usually where its toe to toe, but the 7200rpm obviously has better seek times and random file access. I do not think anybody is going to notice the small difference in speed unless they are looking for it, but its very noticeable when you want to install just one more game and you get the hard drive is full error.

If performance was my goal/motivation I would be using an external drive via esata.

 

Thanks for the offer but HD Tune results don't say much about real life performance.

It would be nice if you can do some application benchmarks.

Or you could do some boot benchmarks like Boottimer.
http://www.4shared.com/file/49420375/9c14043b/BootTimer.html

Yes they said they were similar in performance. And that is incorrect in my opinion. The Storagereview benchmarks say it all.
It does not get more clear than that.

 

The 320GB 5400 actually beats the 160GB 7200 RPM in almost all the benchmarks in Phil's link. It does lose to the 200 GB model in most areas though.

I think you'll have to stay used to getting sick of that statement "320 GB 5400RPM is just as fast as 160GB 7200RPM".

 

You seem to be one of the people that take benchmarks abit too much to heart, what really matters is real life performance and perceived performance.

Unless your only use for the hdd is to run a benchmark the benchmark doesn't matter that much does it?

Show me real life benchmarks like using windows, opening a web page, loading a game and then tell me the difference. There wont be any or much at all. Heck even a best case scenario for a faster drive, how about windows boot time for both drives in the same computer?

And yes like dtwn83 said, we were always comparing the 5400rpm drives to the 160gb model the 200gb is newer and obviously has more data density to add to the mix, when the 400gb 5400rpm drive comes out first we will be in the same spot again with 400gb 5400rpm > 200gb 7200rpm.

 

I am expecting the difference in a 40 second Win XP boot to be around 5 seconds. According to the Tomshardware boot benchmark the difference is 10%. Weather you consider that not much or much depends on your perspective.

I personally value performance much higher than drive size.

By that time there will be a faster 320GB/7200rpm that outperforms the 400GB 5400rpm again

 

And the 5400rpm will still be the better buy

Maybe they should just make 6300rpm drive in the middle so we can all get along. ::handshake::

 

For most people it will be the better buy.
But for some of us it's different

 

Has anybody done any real world application tests on these drives as ViciousXUSMC suggested? I have seen many of these threads but people always point to benchmarks and opinion. I would really like to see these tests as I am currently debating which one of these 2 to get.

 

While in some cases it's true, in some cases it's not.

It really depends on what model and brand you're comparing, and under what circumstances and applications.

In this benchmark for example, the 320GB/5400rpm WD looses in XP startup performance to the Seagate 160GB/7200.2
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...ance,692.html?p=1917,1889,1870,1859,1891,1915
And in other benchmarks the 320GB wins as you said.

 

I would agree with you that it depends on the brand/model/circumstances/applications. You seem to have missed out the first part of my quote though; based on the results that you linked us to, the 320GB did beat the 160GB 7200 rather handily.

That was the point of my reply to Hep!. He's going to have get used to seeing that, as the 320GB does beat the 160GB 7200 in a large number of areas in benchmarks from both your links.

 

No i did not miss that. I agree with that if you're talking about the The Western Digital Scorpio 320GB beating the Seagate Momentus 7200.2 160GB in most benchmarks.

What I meant to point at is that we don't know the brand, modeltype, circumstances and applications Hep! has. So we don't know if he is right or wrong. If he has a Hitachi 7k200 the story may be different than if he has a Momentus 7200.2

 

Fair enough.

 

How come you don't hear much about the 5400.4 series Seagate?

 

The 5400.4 series is basically the same as the hitachi 5k320 series, and the samsung M6 series, and the WD BEVT series.
All of these drives perform about the same, just different manufacturers tweak them differently.
Hitachi is usually the fastest and noiseiest
Seagate has the 5yr warranty and quiet
Samsung has amazing power efficiency and bang for the buck
WD usually has the quietest coolest drives
Toshiba and Fujitsu usually market them first, but tend to be a bit behind in the reliability section.

I wish we had some Hitachi 7k320 reviews. That think should crank.

Oh yeah, I need two velociraptors, to stripe them in Raid 0.
I am either doing that, or getting one 7k320 and one velociraptor.
I kinda feel compelled to using Hitachi, cause I have the Hitachi logo gold leafed onto my system.

K-TRON