Hitachi or Fujitsu harddrive???

I'm ordering a z81sp from geared2play.com. I have 2 choices between hdd brands

Fujitsu 80gb 5400rpm @ 139$

Hitachi 80gb 5400rpm @ 135$

My only concern is that it doesn't break down. If the Fujitsu is more reliable i'd gladly pay the extra 4$.

 

i know that Hitachi's are pretty highly recommended and have been for awhile, i think the Hitachi will be recommended more and it is cheaper so i would go with that. Hitachi's are known to be very reliable HDD's

and my god, it is a $4 difference!

 

and my god, it is a $4 difference!
------------------------------------------------

just checking to see if that 4 dollars meant anything

 

I had both. I know from reviews that Hitachi 80/5400 is faster than other HDDs with 5400rpm. Fujitsu's 80/5400 is one of the slowest. The difference in MB/s is like 10%. I think my subjective feeling about the booting time after my Fujitsu was replaced by Hitachi is confirming this. However, Hitachi is producing some clicking noise during operation which I haven't noticed with Fujitsu. Sometimes it disturbs a little bit if you are working in a very silent room.

Personally, if I would have second choice, I'd probably return to Fujitsu (or rather
try Samsung or Western Digital).

Concerning the HDD temperature, I don't notice difference, and I already don't remember what the reviews and the official specs say. I think it's because those were contradictory.

Hitachi would be more expensive here than Fujitsu but the difference is marginal.

 

I have the 60GB Hitachi 5400 rpm drive in my M60 and it performs well. Much faster than the 4200 rpm drive in my old notebook and while there is a little noise, it's not that noticeable.

Matt

 

id get the fujitsu.......

 

i go for hitachi! reports said that its 5400 rpm hard drive comes close to other 7200 HDD.

The con, however, is that it gets hot faster. But its performance and reliability are the best!

 

Hitachi seems reliable to me. Dunno about Fujitsu.

 

I'd go for the hitachi.. why not get the 7200rpm?

 

overall picture......both have good durable bearrings. fujitsu drive i have is next to completely silent and low heat output. hitachi is in league with IBM so im somewhat biased as i cant stand IBM hard drives due to the overwhelming problems with them. the hitachi's also run hot like the one guy said. BTW, the noticeable speed gains from having a 5400 RPM drive and a 7200 drive in my opinion are not worth the extra cost. you want fast as hell hard drives get something with a tricked out RAID setup.
in my experience with laptop hard drives of all brands the bearrings are usually the first things that cause problems. they spin around and around making heat then the bearrings get worn down then there is uneven spinning then there is an odd noise next thing you know hard drive is dead.

and i would shop http://newegg.com. they probably have the product you want for cheaper.

 

id also recommend upping your ram to at least 512'ish (i prefer 1 gig'ish -2 gig'ish as my own minimum) to take less load off the hard drive. more ram you have the less windows xp will need to access the drive to swap data resulting in better performance and longer drive life. windows of all kinds is extremely inefficient at handling RAM so the more you give it usually the better. particularly if you are a multi tasker like myself. i often have several programs going at once. for example, ill be pvp'ing in World of warcraft which i keep turned up halfway, talking to people on yahoo, talking over ventrillo, have a webpage up from checking out a website called thottbot.com, might decide to open up adobe photoshop to quickly edit some picture a friend sent me.....and all in all performance is fine.

 

WoW with thotbott = cheating.

 

thotbott=more efficient use of time

 

This is what Eddie from Geared2play had to say in a thead in the Asus forum:
Fujitsu= most reliable, runs warm
seagate = most expensive and reliable runs warmer
hitachi = not as reliable but cheap and they do have 7200 runs warmer too
wd= inexpensive, new to the market but runs coolest
samsung= very new to the market, low availability, inexpensive and least power consumption
Toshiba= stay away from these people, worst quality by far, worst reliability, expensive for what they are, extremely slow rma, most probable to develop

 

yeah i agree with the above. seagates are good and reliable and toshiba drives are crap crap crap crap.....crap. i wouldnt ever buy anything toshiba again. everything i have gotten from them has died beyond repair within a short period of time.

my friend bought a toshiba satellite somthing or other laptop and first thing i told him was to go ahead and sell the brand new toshiba hard drive and get a different branded one (as i had 2 toshiba drives die within a short amount of time) and i nearly fell over laughing when it said his hard drive wasn't toshiba. forget which brand it was.

 

Been using fuji for over 2 years now. out of 5400rpm drives they account for over 30% of our shipped drives. In 2 years we have had all sorts of drive rma. Toshiba accounting for about 95% of them and we only used them for like 3 months back in late 2004. The rest were mostly hitachi 7200 a few wd's and sproratic returns of other brands like wd and seagate which we dont use alot of. Fuji is the only drive we have used that had 0 rma and thats aout of about a 1000 drives so far. Probably very lucky but that speaks volumes. Their mht series drives were very reliable. MHV series just came out. At the time mht drives were out we compared them to hitachi and tests showed that random and linear seek were slightly better but nothing you will ever notice becuase the difference was in miliseconds on a second scale. .

 

Hitachi all the way. For notebooks there is no other way to go. IBM drives are not to great in my experience. The last one I had died. My hitachi is still going strong. They are the fastest most reliable and often cheapest drives for notebooks (and desktops) although seagate and others make some good drives to. Get hitachi

 

I am sorry thats just not true. Cant discredit your claim of how fast they are though i ran my own tests and the only conclusion is that with every revision the stats are different. Comparing speed of 5400 8mb drives is poinless for the most part. The last 2 parts you said are just not true. I am not arguing. But you cant base that on a few drives that you have owned you cant base it on what you hear and read. Take it from someone who is a vendor for them and can tell you the rma rate for fujitsu is the lowest by far.

 

I had a 80GB 4200 Hitachi in my new Laptop. I partitioned and installed and on the second day the drive was making a loud klak klak sound and it had died.
The new replacement drive is a Hitachi again and it's doing ok so far. It makes the occasion quiet klak sound as well as the constant searching sound.
I just hope that quiet klak sound doesnt't turn into a loud one again.

 

ah ****it, I wish I woulda read this thread before I bought one of eddie's z81's earlier today. I went with a hitachi. I'll see about fixing that early tomorrow.

 

Sorry for the total NOOB question,

but I'm looking to buy the WD scorpio 120GB or 160GB 2.5" harddrive.

It says its ATA. I know desktops IDE vs Sata etc, but are all laptops the same? As in I can purchase any aftermarket harddrive that will plug into my Gateway 3550gz and work?

Thanks!!
Nathan

 

EDIT: Whoops

Retarded moment right there looking for info on your laptop. Take the drive out and inspect its connectors before you pruchase a drive. If it has about 80 gold pins sticking out the back it is PATA/IDE/ATA, if it has 2 black colored blades sticking out it is SATA.

 

It depend son the interface. Like dietcokefiend said, you have to check and see which connector you have. SATA is newer, and most notebooks have that connector. You can also check by uisng a piece of software called Everest. It will give you alot of system information, and under hard disk, should list what interface your notebook uses.

 

Thanks Dietcokefiend and Zero.. super quick reply!!

Never though everest would come in use, hah always just had the program on my laptop!


Anyhow it says ATA Device properties under device description, so I guess its an ATA.

Since I have you two experts on the line anyway, curious if this will work for my configuration.
WD Scorpio HDD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136071

I'm mostly not sure if the "Serial ATA150" is same as any current ATA drive.

Good reviews on this harddrive, except for someone mentioning that it sends an occasional vibrate up to the palm area and the 120gb was the better choice. Any thoughts on this at all?

Thanks again!!

 

ATA is slightly different to Serial ATA (SATA). Your current drive is ATA, so you'll need to find another ATA to take its place. The one thats linked is a SATA, and isn't compatible with your notebook. Most of the time, when a hard disk manufacturer releases a drive, they release them both in ATA and SATA models. So, you may be able to find the ATA version of that drive, or something similar at least.

 

ahh gotcha
so serial ata = SATA for 2.5" laptop harddrives.

awesome! thanks again zero!!