Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
For an overview of the threads where I'm discussing various aspects of my Hitachi 7K500 HD upgrade...
See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5608622#post5608622
For a direct link where I benchmarked the two drives we're discussing here...
See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5608617#post5608617
If you want to see what a difference defraggler and PerfectDisk 10 can make...
See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5609787#post5609787
The purpose of this post is to give real world usage of both these drives with identical installs on identical machines, except one is using 8GB of RAM and the other is only using the stock 4GB of RAM.
This is not an exhaustive list of things I tested, but rather it is indicative of what to expect from the different HD's. Also, this install includes Office 2007, Adobe Suite CS4, Lightroom and some other lesser (known) programs and utilities.
All told, this is about a 43GB install on C: drive (partitioned to 100GB as the 2nd partition on the HD). Also, the first partition (I'm disregarding here the 100MB 'official' first partition Win 7 needs to boot from) is a 32GB partition on the Toshiba and a 64GB partition on the Hitachi.
Is this fair? No, not to the Hitachi - but as we'll see later - it doesn't matter.
What is important to remember is that there are no 'tweaks' done to both systems and also, this is the first time both programs and 'cmd' prompt utilities are run on each system - at exactly the same point in time of their clean Win 7 life.
This is for Phil (mod):
43GB File folder of pictures, music, program files, various install files, ISO's, documents, etc. copied from one partition to another:
Tosh: 63 minutes; 7K500: 44 minutes. Over 40% improvement.
Another disk intensive program I timed was PerfectDisk 10. Although I ran it after all the results in this post were timed, it is very interesting to note how long PD10 took with each HD:
All times in seconds...........Tosh...............7K500
Analyze C:........................80....................61
1st Offline Defrag:.............317.................337
Analyze C:........................90....................79
1st Online Defrag:..............46 Minutes.........23 Minutes
Yes! Twice as fast - I wish this was the 'norm' for all the tests following!
Note: the 'offline' defrag times are correct - but remember that the Toshiba was defragging a 4 GB hibernation file and the Hitachi was defragging an 8GB hibernation file. (In addition, of course, to the other system files they also needed to defragment, 'offline').
If you needed convincing about the 7K500 - the only two things you need to know are the above results. However, I have a few more real world tests to compare to your HD's.
Okay! Let's get right to the numbers:
Install Win 7 x64 Ultimate via Lexar Lightning 4GB USB stick:
Toshiba MK3252GSX = Tosh
Hitachi 7K500 = 7K500
All times in seconds...........Tosh...............7K500
'Starting Win 7 screen'.........45...................45
'Done Copying+Expanding'...360..................240
'1st Reboot after above'.....120...................30
'2nd Reboot after above'.....240.................300
'Show Desktop 1st time'.....180..................150
Overall time Install Win7.....19 minutes........12 minutes
Install CS4 (full install):
....................................Tosh...............7K500
'Initialize' CS4 install...........120 secs...........90 secs
Overall time Install CS4.......22 minutes........14 minutes
Update CS4 ([email protected]).....18 minutes........14 minutes
Open CS4 Premiere Pro 1st time:
Tosh: 85 secs; 7K500: 50 secs.
Run Process idle tasks (cmd window):
Tosh: 12 minutes; 7K500 1 minute (yeah! 12 times faster).
Run defrag c: -b (cmd window - defrag boot files):
Tosh: 120 secs; 7K500 90 secs.
Run defrag c: /x (cmd window - compact free space):
Tosh: 145 secs; 7K500 60 secs.
Shut down (computers idle for 10 minutes):
Tosh: 14 secs; 7K500 13 secs.
Boot to Desktop (initial view):
Tosh: 66 secs; 7K500 41 secs.
Desktop is 'Usable' (wireless connection shows 'connected'):
Tosh: 105 secs; 7K500 70 secs.
Now, you may think, but, but, but... one has 8GB and the other has 4GB of RAM - that's not fair - at all!
Reality is that whether I put the drives in the 8GB system, or the 4GB system, the above numbers although they changed (slightly), their differences didn't. So, no, for the above tests I stand by my results as-is.
Another point to keep in mind is that I was running these tests on the two machines side by side - one did not have an advantage over the other except for the HD used.
(What kind of an advantage? Well, for example, letting the machine sit there idle and therefore leaving time for SuperFetch to work its magic. I'm not saying they didn't sit there idle - what is important is that they were idle for identical time periods).
An interesting point is how both machines have the same file number id for the hibernation file - how's that for an 'identical' clean install?
What's also interesting is the process idle tasks 'test' I timed. This 12 times improvement shocked me - but there is no way to do a 're-test' (unless I re-installed everything again!).
This huge improvement is the much more efficient and speedy Hitachi taking advantage of small time bites when I was busy doing other things. Although the Toshiba had the same time advantage, it's obvious that the Hitachi could do much more with the same time slices, than the Toshiba could.
This is also the reason I (usually) upgrade to the latest NB HD available. The Toshiba is almost exactly one year old - but it 'feels' like its from 1999.
Stock Toshiba MK3252GSX vs. Hitachi 7K500 Real World
Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by tilleroftheearth, Dec 9, 2009.
