Seagate or Hitache 7200 RPM hard drive

I'm planning on buying a new Thinkpad T61 and upgrading to a large capacity 7200RPM drive. I was planning on using the Hitachi Travelstar 7k200, but I just found a couple of stores that have the Seagate Momentus 7200.1 160GB available for about $70 less. If I get this instead of the travelstar, I will have enough left in my budget to upgrade to the T61p, which would be nice as I do like to game from time to time. My question is, how much of a performance decrease will I experience from the smaller platter size? I don't need the extra 40GB of storage.

 

If you want to game go seagate, the only real question is space. Smaller platter size you have to explain?

 

I've heard that the speed of a hard drive depends not only the spindle speed, but also on the density of the drive. For instance, a 160GB 5.4k drive could be as fast as a 7.2k 100GB drive.

 

I am pretty sure that the 7K200 is better in terms of noise and performance. I have a 7200.1 100 GB in my T60 and it has the marble dropping sound that most people that have it mention. The 7K200 hopefully builds upon the 7K100, which I had in my old laptop and it was very quiet and worked beautifully.

 

Noisy components don't really bother me that much, but is the heat worse on the seagate? I do like to use my laptop in my lap fairly often.

 

OK your smaller platter size question I believe is backwards? Higher density allows smaller platters. Hitachi uses “perpendicular technology” the Seagate might use the same technology I think they brought it to market 1st just talk about it less than Hitachi.

 

The Perpendicular technology is only on the 7200.2s, not the 7200.1s. Same with the 7K100 - Perpendicular is only on the 7K200s, not the 7K100s.

 

Seagates are the best in my opinion. Also Seagates are the highest reviewed usually and seagate is the biggest hard disk manufacturer. Which is higher quality depends on various things like people have mentioned platter density, recording technology, and latency. The latency gap between 4200 to 5400 compared to 5400 to 7200 is bigger. I personally would rather get the 5400 especially if it is larger. There is no right answer because its always comes back to battery life and heat (even if it is very little) compared to performance (even if there is a small difference) but I have noticed that some 7200s get very hot especially for laptops and also have seen the performance differences with 7200s. It just depends. Read some reviews of your HD before you buy my opinion would be go for 5400 especially if it is bigger. Also price (unless u get a good deal) is a major factor and I don't believe theprices of the 7200 are justified (sometimes, not all the time).

 

The one that I found was a 7200.2, sorry for the typo.

 

I personally have not seen or heard a 7200.2 or a 7K200, so I cannot provide anything, only based upon previous experience. I'd stick with Hitachi. Dont get me wrong, Seagate makes some amazing hard drives, I love their FreeAgents especially, but I'm sticking with Hitachi on this one mainly because I care about performance first, noise second, and heat third. From what I've seen the Hitachi's are quieter with Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM).

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but both are 7200? I LUV my Hitachi!

 

Yes, both are.

 

You kind of answered your own question when you posted, buy the upgrade so you can game the HDD are in the same class save $70 improve other things!

 

I've had my Seagate 7200.2 for a few weeks now & no problems yet. My old 7200.1 is still humming along as it was when new.