Seagate Momentus 7200.4 thread

For my future refrence, are PCMark and Vantage the same thing?

 

For your further consideration, the CrystalDiskMark scores:

My 5K500.B's in raid 0:


the other Vaio AW owner's 7200.4's in raid 0:




thoughts? looks like a pretty epic beatdown to me in all but the 4k...but I'm new to these tests, so your eyes > my eyes.

I definitely won't be canceling my 7200.4 order.

 

PCMark 05 was a Windows XP benchmark.
PCMark Vantage is a Vista benchmark.

Future Mark is the company that makes the software. I think their old name was PCMark but I´m not sure.

 

The 5K500.B CrystalDiskMark result is barely any better than for a single 5K500.B.

Find another benchmarking program to confirm this.

John

 

My thoughts: Synthetic benchmark results don´t mean much to me. I've seen several times that synthetic results are not a reliable indicator of real life performance. I'd rather see the results of opening up a 40MB .tiff file in Photoshop (w/o photoshop running in advance) while running a virusscan in the background.

 

understood.

*throws fish back*

 

yea, something must be wrong. my CDM numbers are nowhere near my HDTune numbers. downloading Vantage. will post results.

I wonder why my CDM would be so off compared to his.

 

Agree. Something that involves multitasking or something.

 

There is another real-life test. Unfortunately they compare 7200.4 only to 7200.2 and 7200.4 in RAID0 :/

http://hardwarelogic.com/news/138/ARTICLE/6336/2/2009-04-27.html

 

where can I buy one? :| I'm trying to buy but it's always unavailable.... can some one please point me a link where I can buy one... or two?

 

http://discountechnology.com/Seagate-ST9500420ASG-SATA-Hard-Drive - there are 48 left.

 

not familiar with them. what's their return policy? I see a "if the item has had problems" return policy, but not a "if you're not satisfied with our product" return option...

Edit: Never mind. The item has no manufacturer warranty and only a 1-year discountedtechnology warranty. pass.

 

where is this test, please?

 

Here: http://hardwarelogic.com/news/138/ARTICLE/6336/2/2009-04-27.html
I'm almost sure I have included this link, is it possible that the link was removed from my post somehow?

 

comparing a 7200.2 and a 7200.4 doesnt make much sense. They should have compared it to a WD3200BEKT, 7200.3 or 7K320.

Still the drive doesnt look very promising in terms of performance.

K-TRON

 

I have to agree.

 

A little bit out of topic...

@K-Tron
You have any news from your Hitachi Insider about the 500GB and 750GB?

 

I think the performance for a 7200rpm is quite low as well. What the 'next best' alternative in terms of speed? The Hitachi?

 

I think WD3200BEKT is the fastest hard drive at the moment.

Although there has never been a real life comparison between WD3200BEKT and 7K320.

 

After all this time, I still don't know if this drive is worth its 140$ or not..
I have an Hitachi Travelstar 7k200..Is it faster or not?

 

Seagate 7200.4 will be faster but it will be very hard/impossible to notice the difference unless you are using a stopwatch or benchmark.

 

Thanks..
Could a future Hitachi 7k500 be any faster than this seagate ? (maybe 32mb cache..?)

 

It is very likely that both Scorpio Black 500GB as Hitachi 7K500 will be faster than the Seagate. The reason Seagate under performs is the I/O, an area where Hitachi and WD are usually better.

 

What Input/output in HDD consist of ?
Will this cause better touchable results ?

 

I'm done waiting on the 7200.4's. Gonna put that money into an EeePC and hang onto these 5K500.B's, which gave me a meaningful improvement overall.

I wonder when the next Hitachi and WD's are coming, though. Summer, I assume?

 

It was said on Tom's Hardware that generally speaking hard drive performance is 25% acces time, 25% I/O, 50% throughput. Of course this is a generalization and there for not accurate for every situation.

Tom's Hardware publishes I/O meter benchmarks for most modern hard drives, unfortunately they are synthetic too and 7200.4 was not benchmarked yet.

 

I think I need a piece of advice - I currently have Hitachi HTS54161 (160GB, 5400RPM) in my laptop. I need to upgrade to something bigger and I hoped faster (7200RPM). When I saw 7200.4 I thought it would be perfect - lots of space and fast. Since it wasn't available anywhere I started looking and I found this topic. Now I am not sure what I should do. Wait for some more benchmarks of 7200.4? Possibly with improved firmware from Seagate. Or go with 5K500.B (although its still 5400RPM). Or go with something smaller but faster, 320G should be still fine. I have read that WD Black is nice - although every single WD drive I have ever had failed (I'm not saying they are all bad, I think I'm just very unlucky when it comes to WD drives ), so I try to avoid WD (probably unless it's performance is way superior than competitors).
Does anybody know how long could it take before either there is improved version of 7200.4 available (someone wrote on newegg that current problems with availability is because Seagate tries to fix the firmware) and some real benchmarks appear, or Hitachi introduces 500GB with 7200RPM?

 

I also ordered the 7200.4 in January. Sadly I haven't received the HDD yet. It wasn't a problem for me, because I did not needed it in the past and had no time to use it. So it was ok to wait. But now, 5 months later I have time and want to upgrade my 120 GB HDD to 500 GB.

I also thought the 7200.4 is the ideal drive. Made by Seagate (I hadn't any major problems with them and they often had the latest technology and were very reliable), 500 GB (perfect), 7200 RPM (should be really fast).
Sadly they aren't available yet.
Last time I called my reseller he told me they will arrive mid May. I will call him next week again. If he can't promise me that I receive them in a few days then I'll cancel the order and buy two Hitachi drives.

I also don't like WD. We use an 'older' WD drive in another laptop and the HDD just gets too hot in my opinion. Never had such a 'issue' with Seagate and because the Hitachi seems to be very power efficient I also don't think that the Hitachi drive will become hot.

So if Seagate does not release the drive soon, I will buy a Hitachi drive.
It's kind of sad, because the Hitachi does not have the best access times and only 8 MB cache, but well, I can't have everything.

 

IIRC, Hitachi 7K320 320GB have 16MB cache.

 

yes, but who wants 320GB nowadays

 

If the Seagate delays further and the 7200rpm doesn't show substantially better speed than 5400rpm, I might go for the Hitachi. I have a Hitachi in my laptop now, and it's wonderful.

Though the 320Gb is 'faster', but I think in most cases, people upgrade HDs for size not for speed

 

Yeah, the speed difference between 5400RPM and 7200RPM on 2.5" laptop HDD IMHO is small. And so the best performance/price ratio will be 5400RPM HDD. Bigger capacity, cheaper, and only small performance penalty compared to the 7200RPM one.

Please note that i'm talking about 2.5" HDD, not 3.5" HDD.

 

Yeah.. I know. But because I'm planning on using the 500Gb one as a replacement of my current HD, I would think 7200 v. 5400 would be a big difference. But it seems the Seagate isn't doing too well.

 

Well I just cancelled my order for the 500GB 7200.4. I ordered it on the 17th of February and was told it would be at my door in 2 weeks. Well 2 and a bit months later, it's still not even in the country. Fortunately the company I ordered through understood my position and gave me a full refund. Disappointing though. Most Australian distributors have removed it from their websites. Sigh, the costs of living in the 3rd technology world, known as Australia. Any supply problems overseas?

 

I've heard of a WD Scorpio Black 7200 500gb coming in next 2-3 weeks...is it possible??

 

Which part of Australia are you from? Adelaide is horrible for tech. I'm thinking of going back to Singapore to get the cheaper HDs.

mwave.com.au and onlinevip.com.au all report no info on the 7200.4

 

It's possible.
Both Hitachi and WD have big chance to release the drive on late May or June. (speculation based on the leak info about Hitachi testing their new drivers for months).

 

There aren't any definites on when an updated 7200.4 will appear (right now the only source that seems to have them is Dell, and it doesn't appear theirs have any of the issues fixed), or when WD/Hitachi will release their Scorpio Black 500 GB or 7K500. Sometime this summer, possibly early summer, looks likely, but it could just as soon be August as June. No one really knows is what it comes down to.

If you need to upgrade, I'd do it now. The 500 GB, 7200 RPM drives will probably be about the $140 the 7200.4 is going for now on most websites that still have it listed (though almost always out of stock), whereas you can get 320 GB, 7200 RPM drives for about $70 (found $70 today), and 500 GB, 5400 RPM drives for $85 - $90 (found $88 today), sometimes better for both of those. So even if the 7K500 comes out the day after you buy, so long as you don't have to have the best performance, you'll be getting a better value with a 320, 7200 or 500, 5400.

I upgraded to a 7K320 last week. Found a good deal on it ($53 from ZipZoomFly after a MIR), and it's enough space. The 5K500.B is probably a better option for most people if space is the primary reason for the upgrade, so if it's within your budget I'd recommend it. The 7K320 is marginally faster, but nothing you'd notice in the real world. I went with it more because of the deal available at the time and not needing 500 GB of space. I'd take whatever drive has the best deal at the time you're going to purchase, and limit it to 500 GB drives if you think you'll be using more than 320 GB anytime soon. A Seagate or WD should be fine, too. Right now the best deals at major US retailers look like the Seagate for 320, 7200, and either the Seagate or 5K500.B for 500, 500 (if I were buying today I'd go with the 500 GB ones).

 

I'm from Brisbane. It's not just Adelaide that's terrible, it's the whole country. About 18 months ago we bought a large flat screen TV for about $5k (which was 30% off retail price). We could have bought the "next model" from the U.S.A for $2.7k. That particular model didn't arrive in Australia for about 4 months. Same goes for our internet speed, our digital TV rollout, pretty much anything tech related. Everything is overpriced, and everything is years behind.

Rudd wants to upgrade our internet. What do all the morons in the street say? "Nooo don't spend money upgrading our internet. Who cares if our internet speeds are slower than 3rd world countries. Admittedly, we don't actually know anything about the internet or how it's going to play a huge part in home entertainment, data movement and Australia's connection with the outside world, but we'll just complain anyway". Anyway, enough of my rant.

I sent an email to one of the companies on shopbot and they replied:

"Nobody has stock in Australia. I really do not know when it will come. I checked with supplier every day last week. Nobody can tell me ETA, but I guess it will not be too long."

I think I'll just wait till WD and Hitachi release their new models.

 

How does the 7200.4 compare to the 5k500.B in heat, noise, and power consumption? I realized that those 3 are more important to me than a marginal performance increase. My 7200.4 just arrived last week, but I haven't had the time to install it yet - should I return it or sell it and get a Hitachi 5k500.b if the Hitachis display a significant improvement in heat and noise production and battery life? Thanks!

edit: I am stupid. that is all.

 

undervolt a hard drive?

 

I don't think undervolting a HD is possible......

 

The 7200.4's data sheet shows a seek power consumption of 1.554W. However, there's no indication of the maximum power consumption during seeking / reading / writing. The 5K500.B's data sheet shows a seek power consumption of 1.7W and, normally, the faster speed of a 7200rpm HDD uses more power.

The datasheet for the 5400.6 shows seek power of 1.54W and a read/write power of 2.6 / 2.85W.

John

 

A UK site has just put up ETA: 11-05-2009, might be worth pre ordering. Decisions, decisions...

http://www.oyyy.co.uk/product.php/79225/seagate-momentus-7200.4-laptop-2.5-inch-hard-disk-drive-500gb-sata-7200rpm-16mb--internal-?CAWELAID=288476790

 

Please tell me that date is in European format and not US.

 

Give it up to wait and bought the 320gb WD 7200 drive.
Post results when the drive is here.

 

No date, but cheaper:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-203-SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=896

I have been waiting ages for the hdd... why is it taking so long to come out?

 

Agree with GotBoost and Apollo13. My new notebook finally arrived last week and I couldn't wait any longer for the 7200.4.

As previously stated, if you absolutely have to upgrade now and space is a factor, the 5K500.B and Scorpio Blue 500 both have EXCELLENT reviews, are well-priced, and you have a choice in case you prefer one of WD or Hitachi over the other. Because of the higher platter density inherent in these drives, you don't seem to give up much performance over the last crop of 7200/320s.

If you have to upgrade now and absolute performance over size and power/noise considerations matter, the 320GB Scorpio Black can be had with good deals right now, and it's generally considered to be one of the fastest 2.5" drives with excellent all-round performance and well-balanced I/O. I went this route.

If you don't have to upgrade now, it will only be a short while before everyone has their hat in the 7200/500GB/16MB ring - don't doubt that there will be 7K500 and a Scorpio Black 500GB by summer.

 

Is there any news on a 7200 rpm Hitachi in the near future? Here in Australia, the 7K320, which was significantly more expensive than than the 7200.3 Seagate or the WD320BJKT or BEKT, has now suddenly dropped significantly below the price of the Seagate and WD. Does this indicate a new Hitachi is already in the wings?

 

The 500gb Hitachi is still in development/finalization. It will be out shortly. Give it another month or so

They are not planning another 5400rpm release for another few months.

K-TRON