Search of HDD: Which one gives you max battery life

I'm thinking of getting a new HDD, preferably 250GB or more, maybe 320G, 5400rpm or 7200rpm doesn't matter.
I'm curious what people have to say here.

Which is the HDD model >250GB that gives you the best battery life, minimum wattage consumption.

Thank

 

Seagate 7200.3 320GB is the most power efficient. It's also fast and relatively cheap.

Tom's hardware tested the power efficiency: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/notebook-hard-drive,2006-14.html

 

Phil if I recall correctly it was the WD Scorpio Black that got the lowest power consumption at 1.3W playing a DVD movie, no?

 

I'm not sure but the idle power consumption of the Seagate is lower than the WD.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/.../compare,681.html?prod[2039]=on&prod[2040]=on
http://techreport.com/articles.x/15079/14

But the differences aren't very big, so I'd focus on other criteria like price, warranty and whether you want G-shock protection.

 

Second that. The differences are so small, it only materialises as a handfull of minutes anyway... Warranty, price and quality of product is what matters.

Either way, I can warmly recommend the Seagate 7200.3 320GB HDD.

 

OK Thanks for the suggestions. What I don't want to wind up getting is a HDD that makes my T61 right palmrest hot as it did my old 7K100 ATA on my old T42p. I will have a look at eBay. Does anyone know any good seller that ship internationally from the US?

 

Can't find the power consumption chart of the 5K160, more precisely the HTS542516K9SA00

 

You can find the power consumptions for the two platter versions. The 320GB is on Tom's, the 250GB is on Storagereview.com

The one platter 5K160 will use less power than the two platter versions.

 

I had two 7K100's in my laptop.
When I upgraded to the 7K200's, my drive temperature dropped from a maximum of 178F to 138F.
Then I upgraded the cooling system and my 7K200's peaked at 112F
Now I upgraded my 7K200's to a dual 7K320 configuration and the drives peak at 104F.

The latest generation drives are the most power efficient. The 5400rpm series will be more power efficient than the 7200rpm versions, but the speed difference is pretty large, and the power difference is very small.

Go with any of the 160, 250 or 320gb 7200rpm drives, they are very fast and power efficient.

K-TRON

 

I will definitely buy a 320GB b4 Xmas. I'm still very undecided to which brand get. I'd hate to have another noisy HDD such as a 7K100 100GB ATA drive I upgraded my T42p.

 

I thought scorpio black was speed/performance and the new blue series was the power save one. Also it has some other cool features it seems very notebook.

 

Blue series is not a very good choice for powersaving. Actually the WD3200BEVT has the highest power consumption of all 320GB/5400 drives. It's also the fastest.

Detailed info on the power consumption of the blue series is available on Tom's hardware and Techreport.

 

t30 power,
I must say that after every upgrade in the 7200rpm line by Hitachi, the drives became faster and quieter with each generation.
I can barely hear my 7K320's, well that is when my system worked its dead now, but I will have to figure out how to revive it again.

I know one member found a hotfix/firmware upgrade for the latest generation WD drives, and it makes them run quieter.

K-TRON

 

Thanks K-tron and PhilFlow for all your advice. I think the 5K320 or the 7K320 are my preferred choice at the moment.

 

if you have a 320gb 5400rpm WD, there is no point in buying a ~$120 Hitachi 5K320 if you already have a comparable WD drive.
The difference is noise may be noticeable, but I dont think its worth spending $120 to buy the same spec harddrive which is maybe 6db quieter.

Try using your WD drive in your laptop and if its too loud, than you can either deal with it, or get a hitachi 5k320/7k320

K-TRON

 

There is no HDD quieter than the 5400.5 (Hence high access times)

Next in line is the 5K320....