Shopping for 1TB 9.5mm 2.5 inch laptop drives...

Hi folks,

Been looking for a data drive for my new laptop, to compliment my SSD boot/game drive, and here's what I think I want:

Newegg.com - Seagate Solid State Hybrid ST1000LM014 1TB 64MB Cache 2.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s Laptop Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Seems like a nice drive - a little pricey compared to some of the other hybrids, but with a larger cache, and I'm not all that worried about the price point. Wondered if anyone has any experience with this model, or would like to offer any suggestions based on experience with other brands/models.

I need something 9.5mm or smaller in a 2.5 inch form factor, and have a 6GB/s SATA slot available, so taking advantage of it would be the best case - so any other suggestions would be welcomed!

 

I just bought a 1TB HGST Travelstar for $85 at Frys last week. CDW and other places have it.
HGST Travelstar 7K1000 HTS721010A9E630 - hard drive - 1 TB - SATA-600 - 0J22423 - Internal Desktop Hard Drives - CDW.com

 

Yep, that's actually the other one I was looking at - Newegg has them at $80, so the price is about half of the Seagate drive... wondered what the larger cache would get me for performance, though.

HGST Travelstar 5K1000 0J22413 1TB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive - Newegg.com

edit: my mistake, that appears to be a different model than what you linked

 

I just bought HGST Travelstar 7K1000 2.5-Inch 1TB 7200 RPM SATA III 32MB Cache Internal Hard Drive 0J22423 from J&R for $90, the only 1tb 7200rpm that i know has hit reatail, in the past the 7k500 and 7k750 were pretty decent drives, among the favorites until WD releases the scorpio blacks. For pure data storage you should be fine with 5400 rpm, where there are lot more options out there, but to me a pure storage will not benefit from the hybrid design of seagate.... and i also heard that new version was a 5400rpm, but you better crosscheck it. Personally i would just go with hitachi, they have been very good on the past in terms of performance, noise, vibartion and temps.

 

Yeah, the one I linked to is different. As Abula said, you won't really see a great difference using the hybrid, I linked you to the Sata III 1TB 7200 HDD. Cheaper, but for storage, I don't think you would notice anything at all between them. Same size and cheaper.

 

This is the one I linked to. Nice drive. And it is the only one I could find that is that size and 7200.

 

I keep my laptop on 24/7 so I use a western digital AV-25 1tb drive from newegg. Seems very reliable.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

Depends on what you want
Price vs performance
Capacity vs price
Performance vs Capacity

If it is a data HDD, you want to prioritize maximum sequential transfer speeds (even if you store games since most are sequentially stored). The way to do this is to look for HDDs with Dense platters but not necessarily high RPM. The rule of thumb is a 5400RPM HDD with a denser platter is roughly equivalent in Sequential transfer speed to a 7200RPM with a less dense platter. Obviously, the ideal would be a 7200RPM drive with dense platters but these are rare.. The second advantage of a HDD with fewer but denser platters is reduced power consumption as there is less motor power needed to rotate the plate. The most dense platter on the market that I know of atm is 500GB.
I use a 1tb WD caviar Blue 2.5inch drive inside a USB enclosure which has 2x500GB platters, I find this has top notch transfer speeds even compared to the 7200RPM drives. However, the compromize is this drive has terrible random performance due to the low RPM but this is a moot point as I use it for storage only to complement my laptop's SSD.
Check out this thread where OtherSongs and myself compare the high RPM drives vs the low RPM dense platter drives
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardware-components-aftermarket-upgrades/705814-single-platter-500gb-hdd-3.html

If you want all out performance, this drive: 7mm thick HGST Travelstar 2.5-Inch 500GB 7200RPM SATA III 32MB Cache is probably the fastest as it combines the dense 500gb platter with a 7200RPM motor speed. The max transfer is about 140mb/s which is 20mb/s more than my Caviar blue which has only a 5400RPM spindle.

You can consider this website which is a compendium of most HDDs on the market and their Platter arrangements:
The HDD Platter Capacity Database: The HDD Platter Capacity Database

 

I got 1TB samsung 9.5 mm for 50 quid

 

I don't think getting a SATA 6Gbps drive will matter much in the case of a platter drive, as they're incapable of utilizing the bandwidth of revision 3. Heck, they don't even really utilize the full potential of the bus of 3 Gbps - what you'll see performance increases in is more in the platter density, spindle speed, and cache.

 

That 1TB HGST Travelstar is a great deal.I've been waiting to jump on a 7200K 1TB 9.5mm - Finally!! Good find:thumbsup: