good 1TB laptop HDD

Okay I am looking for a good 1TB hard drive for my laptop(have not bought it yet). It will be m17x(or m18x). Are there any 7200rpm 1tb drives there. I found one on newegg for 244$ is it worth it, it is a SATA 6gbps 7200rpm one, but is it too expensive, how much of a performance difference between that and a 5400rpm drive. A 5400rpm one cost 110$.

 

All 1TB 7200RPM notebook hard drives out there that I know of are 12.7mm thick. Most laptops are designed to accommodate 9.5mm thick drives. Check with Dellienware and find out if it will accept a 12.7mm thick drive. Largest 9.5mm is 750GB atm, so you might want to consider that. The Seagate 750GB is only $80 at Newegg this weekend (through 5/31). In any case I think the current market for 7200RPM 1TB laptop drives is way too expensive. 5400RPM drives will be noticeably slower, but if it's just for storage then it's not as noticeable. I wouldn't use one as an OS/boot drive. The WD Caviar Blue drives are actually 5200RPM.

 

As far as I know, all 1TB 2.5" hard drives are 12mm (or more) tall, which excludes them from almost all laptops. A standard laptop hard drive is 9.5mm. I don't think you'll find a drive over 750GB in a standard laptop form factor.

 

ninja'd ! ! !

 

I have asked a question over at the m17x forums asking if it will support 12.5mm drives. I haven't got any answers yet but lets just assume that it does indeed support 12.5mm drives.
I am planning to use it as secondary drive, my 2 options are a 128gb ssd + 1TB 7200rpm drive or 256gb(or 300gb) ssd + 1TB 5400rpm. I will save more money getting the 7200rpm 1 tb HDD. If i get that then i will install my games on the HDD and on on 128gb ssd, but otherwise I'll get the 256gb SSD for games+OS and the 1TB 5400rpm for multimedia only.
EDIT: Just got confirmation tat it will fit, anyway this is the HDD I am considering strongly -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148710
Do you think it is worth spending the money. It costs 80$ more than a USB 3.0 1TB(at 5400rpm, no 7200rpm 1TB externals) external but wont it give much better performance, and then there the convenience of an Internal drive.

 

I would say that you have really slim hope of it working:

But I hope I'm wrong.

Good luck.

 

Oh did not see it was 15mm height, that is why i made this post cause i was sure i must have missed something. Then are there any other alternative or just 5400rpm drives. I really hoped i could avoid getting an external HDD.

 

Hi answering your question from the other thread regarding the Seagate 1tb HDD,

I think someone else already pointed out that this one is 15mm in height. Im not sure but I don't think it will fit in the m17x. However there are other 7200rpm HDDs with large capacity that works with the R3, such as the WD scorpio black 750gb, here's the newegg link:
Newegg.com - Western Digital Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT 750GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Of course, there's also the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid which is very reasonably priced. None of the 500GB+ laptop HDDs are absolutely perfect though, there are people complaining about the size/noise/speed and everything so it really comes down to what's the most acceptable in your case.

 

If it's just for storage of multimedia, then the WD Blue will do fine, and it's only $109.

Newegg.com - Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD10TPVT 1TB 5200 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

12.5mm height drive.

 

Just to add, the interface makes no difference: SATA/150, SATA/300, or SATA/600 - will all perform the same since all notebook HDDs fail to saturate even the lowest interface.

 

I don't believe anyone sells 1TB 2.5", 12.5mm height drives with a 7200RPM spindle speed. All the ones I have seen are 5200-5400RPM. If you are just using the drive for storage, it shouldn't be much of an issue.

The biggest 7200RPM drive you can get is 750GB (Seagate Momentus or WD Scorpio Black). And those are 9.5mm and therefore guaranteed to fit.

 

Chaz, you're right. I thought there was a 12.5mm 1TB 7200RPM out there, but I guess not.

Considering they can fit 750GB in 9.5mm seems odd that there's not a 12.5mm 1TB. But as soon as there's a 1TB 7200RPM 9.5mm I'm buying it! Well, less than $120

That would mean 250GB per side of platter for dual platter. Wonder how long it will take.

 

Well, ok then will the 1TB 5200rpm be faster than or the same speed as a 1TB 5400rpm USB 3.0 external. Also how much of a performance difference is there between a 5400rpm drive and a 7200rpm drive

 

The differences between 5400RPM drives and 7200RPM drives depends on what you're measuring and what maintenance has been done to them.

If both (identical) systems are defragged fully (with PerfectDisk Pro v11, for example) then to a very casual user they will seem indistinguishable.

However, if we actually do work with these systems then expect to see around 40% to 60% difference between them.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...ba-mk3252gsx-vs-hitachi-7k500-real-world.html


As to the difference between 200RPM's? None.

However, if the 1TB HDD was used as a system/boot/OS drive and the external as a pure data drive - then I am guessing that the USB 3.0 external would be almost twice as fast as the internal drive (even if it was the identical HDD installed/used).

 

What 1TB models are readily available now at 12.5mm? Only one I see is the WD Caviar Blue. That thing only has 8MB cache too, but maybe that's all it needs considering its speed.

 

Samsung is supposedly coming out with a 9.5mm 5400rpm 1TB soon. Honestly most people aren't going to notice the difference unless you do a ton of I/O on your computer.

 

Don't need to do a 'ton of I/0' to appreciate a 7200 RPM HDD.

All you need to do is daily/weekly/monthly maintenance to the system in addition to proper backups to appreciate the up to 60% speed differences.

An example of 'maintenance' is Windows updates, virus scans and simply installing programs (and their updates) as needed/required.

 

The Samsung Samsung HM100UI/Z4 is available in UK but is also 12.5mm + 8MB cache.

John