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    Question: WD Scorpio Blue verses Black performance with SATA 1.5Gb

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by kzii, Aug 12, 2009.

  1. kzii

    kzii Notebook Geek

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    Dear all,

    I have a SATA 1.5Gb interface in my notebook (Sony Vaio SZ90). The current disc is to be replaced by either a Western Digital Scorpio Blue or Black.
    (Yes, I know that the Blue models => 750Gb is 12.5mm high intsead of 9.5mm high so these won't be considered)

    Because the interface is SATA I, and the drive is SATA II then the max read/write speeds are restricted to 1.5Gb. Will the 16Mb cache verses the 8Mb cache in the Black and Blue models make a real performance boost given that the notebook has a SATA 1.5Gb interface?

    z.k
     
    kzii, Aug 12, 2009
    #1
  2. Charles P. Jefferies

    Charles P. Jefferies Lead Moderator Super Moderator

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    Neither drive will come close to maxing out the bandwidth of the SATA 1.5Gbps connection, so go with the faster drive if you can afford it.

    What specific drives are you looking at?
     
    Charles P. Jefferies, Aug 12, 2009
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  3. nklive

    nklive Notebook Evangelist

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    As far as concerns laptops, only the SSD disks benefit from the SATA 2.0 (3.0Gbps) or the upcoming SATA 3.0 (6.0 Gbps) generation. So as Chaz said pick the faster HDD (black adition).
     
    nklive, Aug 12, 2009
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  4. kzii

    kzii Notebook Geek

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    Oh. Marvellous news. Money is not a problem ;) These discs are quite cheap.

    The Scorpio Blue allows me 500Gb verses the Black that has a max of 320Gb.
    I have to admit that I am concerned about the heat dispation of the Scorpio Black: The current disc in my SZ90 is a Seagate Momentus 5400.2 SATA.
     
    kzii, Aug 12, 2009
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  5. User Retired 2

    User Retired 2 Notebook Nobel Laureate NBR Reviewer

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    I had a look at the Sony Vaio SZ90 on youtube and the optical drive appears to be a 12.7mm unit. It would be using a PATA interface. If correct, then you could use a 12.7mm sata-to-pata optical bay caddy to allow use of the 12.7mm tall 750GB/1TB SATA HDDs. Performance would be capped to about 81-87MB/s by the ATA100/UDMA5 ICH8M interface, which is plenty for these HDDs.

    This means you could use the primary bay for a 80GB X25M G2 if you wanted. SUch a setup would allow hotswap in/out of the optical drive and the optical bay caddy with HDD. See my sig if wanting more info.
     
    User Retired 2, Aug 12, 2009
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  6. Randall_Lind

    Randall_Lind Notebook Consultant

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    The Scorpio Blue 500GB is nice but,you do hear the spin up when you turn on laptop. Also if it been sitting for a while you heard it.
     
    Randall_Lind, Aug 12, 2009
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  7. kzii

    kzii Notebook Geek

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    Mine has a SATA 1.5Gb interface, and :
    There is no optical bay caddy.

    There is a built in DVD burner (no it does not come out). Are you certain you looked at an SZ90? The chipset is ICH7 so your link to the caddy/SSD/HDD idea would work if the device had a caddy but this won't because it has not. Oh well. Nice idea otherwise.

    Additionally, I contacted the company, Dynamism, who imported the SZ90 from Japan and they verified that the interface is SATA and the disc shipped with it was a Seagate Momentus 5400.2 with a SATA interface.

    By the way, just in case someone else wonders about SATA on the SZ90 and searches then here is the controller on the SZ90.

    00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
     
    kzii, Aug 12, 2009
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  8. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    Some people report sounds, some people report it as totally quiet.

    It seems like not all drives are the same.
     
    Phil, Aug 12, 2009
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  9. kzii

    kzii Notebook Geek

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    Maybe the startup noise depends on how loud the notebook fan is. ;)
     
    kzii, Aug 13, 2009
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  10. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    Phil, Aug 13, 2009
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  11. knowthenazz

    knowthenazz Notebook Consultant

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    I've got an 320GB WD Scorpio Black and I've been very happy with it.

    My laptop's fan is pretty quiet, and I rarely hear my hard drive at all. Only if I'm in a completely silent environment can I periodically notice any hard drive noise.
     
    knowthenazz, Aug 13, 2009
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  12. kzii

    kzii Notebook Geek

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    I bought the Seagate 7200.4 G-Force drive in the end. Cost me Euros 120 inclusive VAT & delivery.

    Installation was obvious but fidderly. Getting the old hard disc out, and attaching the connected to the new disc was annoying. For reference to others who do this, remember to removethe protective black sheet from the old disc that covers the circuitry of the disc., and stick it onto the new disc in the same way.

    Results: Marvellous.
    The disc is a lot quieter than the factory default installed Seagate 5400 sata disc.

    The speed is noticably faster. hdperm -tT [this is a Linux tool] measured 110 Mb/s read transfer rate.

    The system is a little cooler now than when it had the older disc in it.

    The next step is an upgrade to a T7600 CPU, but these are rather steep on ebay for the timebeing.
     
    kzii, Sep 3, 2009
    #12