Please recommend a 7200rpm drive

Hello, I currently have my m1530 with its Samsung 160GB Sata hard drive and I wish to upgrade to a bulk 500GB 7200rpm drive eliminating (hopefully) the need for externals in the future. Searching Newegg, among other places, I only see the Seagate Momentus as my only option for a large 7200rpm notebook hard drive.

1) Are there simply no other large notebook 7200rpm drives on the market yet?
2) Do 7200rpm notebook drives have a higher fail rate than their 5400rpm counterparts?
3) Seagate is my favorite brand but I have never bought a laptop hard drive from them before nor have I made any recent purchases. Do they still have a good track record?

Thanks.

 

Read this http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/640gb-mobile-hdd,2451-9.html.

The seagate seems untouchable in term of performance. I have got one in my laptop and it is really fast but I back it up pretty often. If you can settle for a 320gb, the wd scorpio black 7200 rpm might be a good alternative.

by the way the wd 640 is $119 at newegg now, not too shabby as a price.

 

I would get this moved to the hardware forum for better responses.

1. I think that is your only option as the Hitachi 7K500 is very hard to find. However, I wouldn't get the Seagate 7200.4 because users have found that in real life, performance isn't as good as it's theoretical performance and you could get similar performance in a 500 or 640GB 5400RPM drive.

2. I have yet to see data that suggests this is true. If anyone else claims this ask for proof.

3. On average, all the brands are about equal.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the performance issue. I researched some more and aside from placebo, where people did actual benchmarks, the 7200rpm seagate underperformed. I think Ill save a few bucks and go with a 5400rpm drive.

 

If you are not in a hurry i would suggest waiting for a month until Hitachi Travelstar 7K500 goes into retail channels.

Seagate is my least favourite brand as it has the highest failure rate both in statistical reports and my personal experience.

 

I'm also looking to replace/upgrade my Scorpio Blue 500GB notebook drive and this link:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/640gb-mobile-hdd,2451.html

convinced me that a 'denser' per platter drive at 5400 RPM would not be faster than what I currently have.

I have also bought (and returned!!!) 4, 500 GB 7200.4 Seagates (I thought they were defective - the 'performance' was that abysmal).

Those 7200.4's were used on clean Vista installs. I'm thinking that on Windows 7, they may indeed be the fastest 500 GB drive around.

See:

http://anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=3666

I may try one again if a 'real' upgrade doesn't show up soon in my part of the world.

 

And read this: http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/17010/1

Also points out that the 7200.4 might be overrated. So far, however, it's the only 7200rpm 500GB notebook drive readily available AFAIK. Hitachi is exepcted to start shipping its latest generation 7K500 within the next month, but I've read nothing so far about a Scorpio Black 7K500 from WD. Meanwhile the Scorpio Blue 500GB is pretty fast, even tho its 5400rpm.

 

I am also reading good things about the Scorpio Blue 500GB 5400rpm WD. I think I will make that purchase since there really isnt anything bigger other than another WD at 640GB, also 5400rpm ($120 is a bit steep though $30 more for 140GB is debatable). I was thinking about waiting for more HDs to hit the market but then I remembered my personal rule, never do that, lol.

 

DON'T GET SEAGATE DRIVES! They have massive failure rates.. Western Digital and Hitachi are good but if you want performance and best power usage, wait for the Hitachi 7K500 is the best out there.. no other mechanical hard drive can beat it..

 

Fastest hard drive at the moment: Hitachi 7K500

While it's not available get the WD5000BEVT. Going by the new Tom's hardware review the 640GB seems slower than 500GB WD.