Seagate Momentus 7200.4 thread

Not for a couple of years.

The Seagate 7200.4 has a one platter version of 250GB, and the two platter version has 500 GB.

 

By the time we have 500Gb per platter, SSD will have dominated the market, and probably something else will come along the line.

 

Does anyone know the exact model number of the Seagate 7200 500GB drive? Perhaps we would know more about the exact release date if we know the model number.

 

here's the news:

the Seagate 7200.4 drive is not yet released.

so there shall be another update of the news tomorrow .. if you insist.

 

Not really. Some info here though:
http://www.span.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=22250
That page hasn't been changed since July.

 

After learning how Seagate come up with their serial numbers, the most likely serial numbers that they will use for the new drives are ST9500422AS and ST9500422ASG. ST is the brand name for Seagate. 9 is for 2.5" drive. 500 is for 500GB. 4 is for 16MB Cache. 22 is for the new 7200.4 drive. AS is for SATA and ASG is for SATA with Free Fall Protection.

I tried googling it and didn't come up with any result.

 

ST9500421ASG - that comes up with one result, some Polish forum.

How did you end up with 422 instead of 421?

 

On a page on seagate's site, a seagate person responded to a question on timing of release for the 5400.6 and 7200.4

The answer from the seagate person (dated 20th October) was:
5400.6 to be released mid-Nov
7200.4 to be released mid-Dec

So looks like the 5400.6 came out earlier than projected.
Hopefully the 7200.4 will be on time.

The page i'm talking about is:

media.seagate.com/2008/09/seagate-500gb-notebook-hard-drives-power-new-acer-notebook-computers-with-worlds-highest-capacity-and-speed/#comment-297

I couldn't add the http: and 2 backslashes to the URL above cause I haven't reached 15 posts (didn't know this forum had such a rule!). But if u copy & paste that whole URL into your browser, you should get there.

 

can help you for that, thanks for the info...

http://media.seagate.com/2008/09/seagate-500gb-notebook-hard-drives-power-new-acer-notebook-computers-with-worlds-highest-capacity-and-speed/#comment-297

 

The 5400.6 is available now on eBay and listed at most suppliers: ST9500325AS / ST9500325ASG.

 

Hmm, interesting on the release dates. I kind of expected it to come out a little bit earlier to try to capitalize on holiday sales. Makes the Hitachi/WD/Segate 320x7200's look a bit more attractive with no release till mid-December.

 

Is the 7200.4 going to be available in the retail channel (NewEgg) in Mid Dec or will it be Top-tier OEM only for the first couple months? I ordered my M4400 with an 80GB 5400 hoping to replace it with a 500GB 7200.4. I'm hurtin'. Dell's Memory and Hard Drive upgrade prices are ridiculous; they're gonna have to do alot better if they want my money for those parts.

 

USUALLY they release them OEM first but so close to Christmas...you never know Seagate might just send us a present

 

7200.2 has 20 as the ID number. 7200.3 has 21. I would expect 7200.4 to have 22 as the ID number.

 

7200.4 vs. 5400.6
If both 500GB versions will soon be available, I would appreciate any thoughts on the trade-offs between speed vs. noise/heat. Speed is great, but might the added heat and noise be noticeably annoying to where the 5400.6 is a better option? This would be going into an Apple Macbook Pro 17".

 

It depends on many factors:
-How critical you are
-How well your notebook absorbs noise and dissipates heat
-How cool and noisy the specific hard drive you get is

There's always the risk of getting bothered by a noisy or hot hard drive.

If you don't want to risk it, go with 5400rpm.

 

Thanks for the feedback - this would go into an Apple Macbook Pro 17", if that makes a difference

 

Yes that does make a difference. The 'old' MBP is likely to be affected by vibration.

I would recommend you to buy the 7200rpm from a seller with very good return policy. If you don't like the vibration you can always exchange it for a 5400rpm.

 

Like Phil said its really about how sensitive you are to heat, vibration and noise. I have the 7200.3 and I know some people have said to me that they think the drive runs hot but I don't think so. The vibration on it is negligible and noise is probably a little louder then usual but not annoyingly so and only when under duress ie defrag or some high intensity gaming. BUT, if its defragging I usually leave it alone so I don't notice it and when gaming its easily drowned out by speakers or if you use headphones you won't even notice.

The only thing I know about Macbook's is that apparently the WD seems to make your laptop vibrate like a baby that's just drunk a litre bottle of Red Bull.

 

Saw this off of Google News today:

http://www.crn.com/storage/212001373

That's encrypted hard drives, and though it doesn't explicitly mention 500 GB, 7200 RPM, it certainly seems to implicitly say 500 GB, 7200 RPM encrypted drives will be shipped early next year to Dell.

So I'd say that still leaves room for them to ship out 500 GB, 7200 RPM non-encrypted ones late this year. But I've yet to see any new specifics on those.

 

I hope the 500GB 7200rpm HDD hits 100MB/s max speeds

 

Oh, it will - in RAID 0. Otherwise, that's a pipe dream. There'll be an increase in speed from areal density, but it's still a 7200 RPM drive. If you go by the highest benchmark from any 320 x 7200 drive on Tom's Hardware, 69 MBps, then 80 MBps is an optimistic outlook for these drives. I'd be happy with 70 MBps as the average for a 500 x 7200 x 2 platter drive - WD and Hitachi are still below 65 MBps on Tom's (and I usually see Hitachi listed as the fastest from NBR tests).

They'll be fast - just not quite that fast.

 

Another little snippet:
Seems like the 7200.4 500Gb is already available to Apple's Corporate Customers:
forums.appleinsider.com/showpost.php?p=1337794&postcount=18

from the thread:
forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?p=1338006

So hopefully it will be available on ebay soon enough... ;-)

 

If I'm not mistaken, the 500GB 5400RPM drives are getting max write speeds of around 90MB/sec, it's not inconceivable that a 7200rpm would hit the 100mb/sec for READ

 

You are mistaking Those are the scores of Seagate 7200.3. The 500GBs/5400rpm get around 80MB/sec. With one exception who posted 86MB/sec.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=307430

 

Hi Guys,

Just some thoughts and observations on the evolution of 2.5in notebook performance (for single user laptop use) in recent times.
In a way I'm trying to guess what the 7200.4 and similar will mean for the average notebook user (Office Apps, surfing, vista shadow copy "thrashing" etc.).

I'm comparing drives of different generations based on their stats on storagereview.com.
All are 7200rpm and with increasing areal density
7200.1 100Gb
7200.2 160Gb
7K200 200Gb
WD3200BEKT 320Gb

tinyurl.com/6q2taa
pls paste above into your browser (I can't post URLs yet!)

From 7200.1 to 7200.2, areal density up 60% but performance improvement NOT huge - mainly in idle power and WRITE access times.

From 7200.2 to 7K200, areal density up only 25% but performance improvement was HUGE (in Office Mark, High-end Mark, gaming etc)
[Edit: 7200.2 and 7K200 actual have same areal density (max capacity for 7200.2 series is actually 200Gb as well). So 7K200's performance advantage even more amazing.]

From 7K200 to WD3200BEKT, areal density went up 60% again but again performance improvement NOT huge (in Office Mark & High-End Mark). Biggest gains were in file server type IOs with high queue depth. And we also begin to see access times start to fall.

7200.4 will bring a 50% jump in areal density but hard to say if it will really bring huge performance gains to Office Mark & High-End Mark. And if access times start falling further...

So guess there's more to drive performance than just Areal Density & Spindle speed. Likely how they wrote the firmware and what application segment they were aiming for would make a difference.

Interestingly, if we add in some 5400 rpm drives:
The WD2500BEVS is almost able to keep up with the 7200.2 160Gb => 50% increase in areal density could compensate for 5400 vs 7200 rpm.

But the WD3200BEVT is unable to keep up with the 7K200 200Gb => in this case 60% increase in areal density could not compensate for 5400 vs 7200 rpm.

So again it's not a clear cut case of high areal density compensating for spindle speed. Some 7200 rpm drives e.g. notably the 7K200 are pretty hard to beat!

tinyurl.com/6qy24c

So looks like it's not easy to predict the likely real-world perf improvement of 7200.4 over 7200.3 generation. Guess we'll have to wait for some benchies!

 

I like the idea of predicting the 7200.4 performance but I think you're making one mistake: Seagate 7200.2 160GB is a relatively slow drive because of slow I/O performance. Hitachi 7K200 200GB is a lot faster and as far as I understand they have the same areal density. The Seagate 7200.2 160GB just doesn't use the whole second platter.

 

Ooops, you're right. 7200.2 and 7K200 have the same areal density. Wow, that makes 7200.2's performance even worse and 7K200's performance even more amazing!

 

320GB 7200.3 hits almost 90MB/s max speeds, I don't see why the 500GB 7200.4 could not hit 100MB/s or even higher max speeds (read and write are about the same).

mine is 7200.2 and does like 58MB/s max

note: I did say max speeds, not average

 

Anybody knows if prices for the 7K200 dropped by much when the 7K320 was launched?
Want to get a 7K320 or 7200.3 and wondering if prices will drop much when the 7200.4 comes out.

 

Not really. 7K320 can actually be found for cheaper.

 

Don't fully understand.
Do you mean that there was no price drop on the 7K200 when 7K320 was just launched?

 

Yes. Check out dealigg for a past history or pricegrabber.com. The 7K200 isn't priced down and the 7K320 can usually be found for a better deal.

 

Okay, we were on different pages then - I assume average speeds until stated otherwise. Still seems a bit high for max speeds, but certainly more plausible than for average.

But why are you concerned with maximum speeds? Isn't the average speed what you care about most of the time?

Considering current 7K320 prices, I doubt it. $97 for the 7K320 on Newegg right now, probably less on Zipzoomfly. The question is more of what the starting price on the 7200.4/7K500 will be, and what its effect will be on the 500 GB, 5400 RPM drives.

 

Hi Guys,
Did some checking to answer my own question(!).

Seems like prices for the 7K200 did start to slide as soon as the 320Gb 7200rpm drives came on the market (that was around May/June 2008).
Before May'08, it was premium priced as there was little competition.

For the current leaders i.e. 7K320, 7200.3 and WD3200BEKT, they held their prices quite well from launch (some downward pressure), but the prices really fell around September (approx 3-4 months after launch).

I can't tell for certain why this happened but perhaps it's because the 2 platter 500Gb 5400 rpm drives were launched i.e. WD5000BEVT and later the 5400.6.

I got this from pricespider.com - which tracks price history
(thanks to sgogeta4 for pointing out dealigg's price history too)

The pages I got the info from are here (look at the top left for a graph of median prices):
The URLs below take you to a preview page so you can see the final URL you're being taken to (avoids hijacks etc.).

www.preview.tinyurl.com/7k200pricehist

www.preview.tinyurl.com/7k320pricehist

www.preview.tinyurl.com/72003pricehist

www.preview.tinyurl.com/WD3200BEKTpricehist

Looks like top spot for premium notebook drive is a shade below USD 200 (~USD180 or so) - that's where they all seem to start.
So if that's where 7200.4 is likely to be priced, it seems unlikely that the current bunch of 320Gb performers are going to face significant price drops when 7200.4 is launched.

Your thoughts?

 

Yup, looks like we're on the same page - just managed to dig up some data to back that up

 

I'm going to make a more optimistic guess with the performance figures: 120MB/s at the start of the drive and 90MB/s average. The 7K200 managed 60MB/s peak, while the 7K320 was closer to 90MB/s with a 60% density increase. The 7200.4 represents a further 50-60% increase in density so a similar performance gain wouldn't be suprising. We might even see 130MB/s peak.

 

no, max speeds are more importans since I'd be using like 60GB from the drive, which is about the first 20% anyways, where most HDDs perform at almost max speeds (with very little speed drop)

average speed drops at most because of the HDD performance towards the end of the drive, which most of the people dont use anyways.

 

Okay, that makes sense. I tend to have most of a hard drive - half at the least - in use, so average is important (and I wouldn't even be interested in the 7200.4 if I didn't need higher capacity). But I can see why maximum (or near-maximum) would be important if you didn't use that much of it.

 

Has anyone bought or noticed any benchies for the ST9500325AS yet?

 

Noted. Just to share my situation and hopefully understand more in the process:
I'm running Vista 32 bit on a notebook with a P8400 processor, 4Gb RAM and currently a 250Gb 5400 disk (WD2500BEVS).
Disk is 30% full (80 Gb used).
Disk is frequently defragged.

I'm finding that performance is an issue and the hard disk is the bottleneck.
When I look in the Vista Resource Monitor (Performance Monitor), it often shows that disk transfer rate is very low but "Disk Highest Active Time" is often close to 100%. I believe this means that the disk is busy serving requests i.e. it can't clear the queue but the requests are for small files that are all over the place => transfer rate is low.
I've attached a screenshot below.

That's why I'm thinking that access time is the bottle neck here rather than MAX transfer rate (for me at least).

I've hardly seen the transfer rate reach close to my current max of about 58Mb/s - usually in the forties when it's loading/writing a large file.

So in my usage (likely different from yours), the overall performance improvement will come from a drive that has low average access times and decent transfer rates.
My HDTune access times are currently around 17.8ms (rather slow by today's leaders).

My usage:
General bloated MS-Office apps, Outlook, Firefox with lots of tabs open, and a small guest VM all at the same time (I know, I know, I should run the VM guest on another spindle for best performance, but that's an aside).

With Vista's many background processes (volume shadow copy, all sorts of auto-updates and scans etc.,) seems like there's a lot of I/O requests from many processes...

Guys, any thoughts on this?

preview.tinyurl.com/VistaWD2500BEVS
Sorry still can't insert images but you can see the screenshot if you paste the above link in your browser.

 

^ yes, access time is very important too. That's why SSDs give sooo much performance increase, with read speeds about the same as a decent fast laptop HDD

example:
HDD - 80MB/s, 17ms access time
SSD - 80MB/s, 0.2ms access time

take the boot up time:

one can say that for every 60 clicks of the HDD (or 1 sec in access times only), the SSD is up ahead with almost 80MB more processed data already (SSD access time is almost insignificant). However, not every click takes 17ms (some are sequential access times of about 2ms or so). So I think we could safely average 60% random accesses and 40% sequential accesses, or like for every 100 clicks of the HDD, the SSD would be up with say 100MB more processed data (80MB from the HDDs random access time loss - or 60 clicks, and 20MB from the HDDs sequential access time loss - or 40 clicks)

100 clicks of the HDD take what, 5 - 10 sec ? (HDD needs time to read the data after it's being accessed)

So for every 5-10 sec of the boot up time, the SSD is already up ahead with like 100MB more data done

does that make sense ?

note: defragmentation has huge performance impact on HDDs as it is insignificant with the SSDs

 

No, but I reckon the WD5000BEVT is faster due to low seektimes.

They also think that here:
http://66.102.9.104/translate_c?hl=...hs=dVs&usg=ALkJrhiHl4Bd5ovjwPz6jRTSt6JwQkwmkw

 

Cheers Phil.

That translation is funny - I couldn't help reading it with a Chinese accent in my head lol.

 

Yeah it was a funny read

 

Which PC Manufacturer that will get this drive first?

 

Someone posted that Apple is already offering it to b2b clients. Not sure if it's true though.

Other than that I'd put my money on Dell. They were the first to offer 7200.3.

 

When will they be available to retailers like Newegg? I was hoping to get 2x of these and RAID 0 them.

 

Half december has been said.

 

Asus seems to have it http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=5&l2=61&l3=781&l4=0&model=2543&modelmenu=2

But whether they already have it for sale or not is unclear.