ST9750420AS 750GB vs WD5000BEKT 500GB + an array of questions

I'm really sorry if this has been posted before but, I cannot find it if a thread like this has been done yet?

I have a Toshiba Satellite with an AMD chip. Specs are posted in my signature.

It's tell my friends that it's performance overall for loading applications and video editing is lower than that of the Dell Inspiron 1525 that I had before it was stolen. I'm not complaining about gaming performance because I only play old 8bit and 16bit games on emulators sometimes so, GFX performance isn't an issue that I care about.

That Dell Inspiron has an Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo Processor T5750 which is
2.0 GHz, 2MB Cache, 667 MHz FSB, the same 4GB DDR2 800 and a Seagate 7200.2 160GB. Apparently I'm being unreasonable in blaming the AMD chip for the Toshiba being slower because I'm running a WD3200BEVT. I'm told that if I change it that I won't notice the small performance decrease in the AMD chip. Do you think that sounds right?

I'm looking to upgrade in the next few months for the hell of it and want more harddrive space. I'm looking at the two drives in the subject line but, cannot see a direct benchmark comparison between the two for their performance. I would like to know which two best mechanical drives are that I can get at this stage.

I think that clearly the Momentus XT is one of the top 2, I'm just wondering which of these two is in second place?

--------

And, being green I would probably sell my WD3200BEVT for $20 or whatever. Can anybody confirm that Windows 7 is nukeable. Dban boot and nuke fails to write this harddrive with zeros and comes up with an error message and I cannot format the harddrive to install another OS. - This question can probably wait to I actually go ahead and upgrade though.

Thanks for your time.

 

The Hitachi 7k500 is a good choice, but it falls to second place because of the momentus xt.

Are your "array of questions" in RAID 0 configuation?

Mr. Mysterious

 

Oh really? So, the Hitachi is better than the newer WD black. Thanks.

I'm not sure you mean by Raid0. By array, I just mean multiple questions. I haven't modified how this stock HDD works on my Toshiba so, I guess that I'm not in Raid0.

HDTune finds no errors in it's scan so, I think there is something in the Windows7 design to make reformatting a harddrive difficult.

Edit: I've just looked up Raid0 and I should have known what it meant. No, I'm not in Raid0 and have never done it with any desktop setups in the past either.

 

Because of a general dislike for Seagate I've decided to buy the WD5000BEKT. For some reason in Australasia the Travelstar costs nearly double that of the WD drive. Thanks for the recommendation for the Hitachi though.

Now I just have to work out how to format a drive with Windows7 installed.

And maybe I could do a WD3200BEVT vs WD5000BEKT thread in the future

 

That "RAID 0" thing was just a bad joke, relax dude. Plus, I know that Seagate has a bad rep, but I'd once again urge you to reconsider it. Many people are raving about it (in a good way).

Format hard drive: http://www.top-windows-tutorials.com/format-hard-drive.html

Mr. Mysterious

 

Yeah, I eventually figured the joke Thanks for your help. It haven't ordered yet so, it's not set in stone yet. The 5000BEKT is just $85 Australian while the Momentus XT is approx $200 with the 7k500 nearing $200 also. So, I think I might just consider WD as a good "cheap" upgrade.

I want a little bit more space and want to make AMD vs Intel comparisons afterwards for the fun of it and $85 isn't bad for being able to do that.

Thanks for the link. Windows 7 seems like a parasite at the moment. I'll work out how to reformat the harddrive.

 

Regarding your original question about whether you would notice a difference between your 2.1GHz AMD dual-core and a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo - I doubt it. The difference would only come out in synthetic benchmarks.

As far as the hard drives go (in the original laptops); your WD3200BEVT is probably faster than the old Seagate 160GB 7200.2.

I would have made the same choice in your place regarding which hard drive to choose . . . Western Digital makes very good quality hard drives and are usually top-tier when it comes to performance. Can't say the same about Seagate, though the XT is supposedly a large improvement over the underwhelming 7200.4. Still, it does not appear the XT was treated to any better QC than the older drives since there are a lot of complaints (see reviews here in the forums and on Newegg/Amazon).

--------

Reformatting the old hard drive - do you have it in an external enclosure or . . . ?

 

Actually the WD Black 500GB is slightly faster than the 7K500.

The Momentus XT is in a different performance league.

The new Seagate 7200.5 750GB hasn't been benchmarked yet afaik, although it has been in stock in a few places.