Thinking of a HDD upgrade, need suggestions.

I’m thinking of upgrading my 120GB 5400RPM Seagate Momentus 5400.3 HDD. I like to have good performance at a reasonable cost. My budget is 9,000 Japanese Yen ~ $100. Looking for a 320GB or 500GB. From what I found there are no 500GB 7200Rpm disks yet, therefore I don’t mind sticking to a 320GB if the performance is noticeably better than a 500GB 5400RPM. Following are the ONLY HDDs available for me within my budget :

320GB 7200RPM

• Hitachi Travelstar 7K320 (HTS723232L9A360) ~ $80
• Seagate Momentus 7200.3 (ST9320421AS) ~ $92
• Western Digital Scorpio Black (WD3200BEKT) ~ $95

500GB 5400RPM

• Samsung SpinPoint M60S (HM500LI) ~ $93
• Hitachi Travelstar 5K500 (HTS545050KTA300) ~ $95
• Seagate Momentus 5400.6 (ST9500325AS) ~ $100
• Western Digital Scorpio Blue (WD5000BEVT) ~ $ 110

I skimmed through Tom’s hardware article Next-Gen 7,200 RPM Notebook Hard Drives, their best performer is Seagate Momentus 7200.3, but they didn’t have any of the 500GB disks in their benchmarks. Didnt do a lot of research, thought I'll ask here first and then do further reading ....
What are your thoughts ? What is the best among the above choices ? didn't check any 250GB disks, is there a particular 250GB disk that I should take a look ?

Thanks.

EDIT : Updated current prices

 

500GB 5400 RPM drives are not that much slower than 7200 RPM drives

here is a comparison between the Seagate Momentus

http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=19108&d=1212180998

and the WD Scorpio Blue

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ratsey/WD5000BEVT/WD5000BEVT_HDtune.jpg

sources: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=307430
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=255259

The WD somehow actually has a lower access time eh. Anyways I personally would suggest a 5400 RPM drive unless you have a good reason to get the 7200RPM since depending on your laptop design and drive, I have heard people with 7200RPMs get slightly rumbling. In addition 7200RPM drives use more power and based on the 2 benchmarks I have above, dont really get significant boost in performance (for my uses).

 

You should wait until the new 500GB 7200RPMs come out. They should be around $100 and they should be out within the next couple of weeks or so. No one knows if the performance would be significantly better than the current 320GB 7200RPM drives yet, but it's worth looking into.

 

Seconding that these are your best two options. If you fill your hadrdrive only a little, then the 320GB drive will be faster; however, since hte 500GB drive is larger it stays faster 'longer'. For example, if you look at the benchmarks you'll notice that once you fill to 100GB (21.5% for the 500GB and 33% for the 320GB drive) that you will have the same speed. If you go past this point the larger drive will be faster. Before the 100GB point the smaller drive will be faster.

The I think the 500GB WD uses less power and is quieter; so combined with reasonable performence and cost it is a good choice, if you need every bit of speed you can get and your only going to fill 100-150GB (don't forget that Vista will fill this much with shadowcopies alone) the smaller 320GB drive will be faster, any more and the 500GB will be faster.

 

Out of the 500gb 5400rpm drives, only use the WD or the Hitachi. The samsung drive is older technology with three platters, and the seagate has really high access times. The wd is prefered by most, but I have not seen any 5K500.B benchies.

Out of the 320gb 7200rpm drives, its really which ever is cheapest. I prefer the Hitachi's cause of their reliability

K-TRON

 

I’m not in a hurry, if 500GB 7200rpm disks are going to hit the market in a couple of weeks, I can wait. But I doubt they will be introduced here for $100. But it might cause the prices of current 500GB 5400RPMs to drop.

 

I'd grab one of the 7200 rpm 320gb when you find one for ~$60

 

On the topic of cheap HDs

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=343273

 

I’m in Japan, therefore I don’t have access to American websites. I updated my first post with the prices available to me.

 

Ugghhh! Typical for me; I bit the bullet and bought one from Newegg last week and paid $10 more.....

OTOH, I am very pleased so far with the Hitachi, although performance increase over my 250GB 5400rpm drive seem marginal.