WD 640GB 9.5mm, anyone have or plan to have one? Thoughts?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136459

 

Check out the hardware forum for benchmarks and comments.

 

I searched and can't find it. Could you post a link?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=416405

On page 2 of the "hardware components and aftermarket upgrades" (sub)forum.

Also, from same page, the Toshiba drive might be of interest to you:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=420650

 

Thanks...


This message is too short

 

I was tempted by this, but got a 500GB Seagate instead; it's about $50 cheaper. It's been just dandy.

I think WD drives are good, but the 5400rpm kills it for me. They are reliable, but slow in comparison to the 7200 rpm (I have had Scorpio Blacks and they are decent)

Obviously, people always want more space, but speed is where it's at. And contrary to all the "just fast as a 7200" malarkey going around, it's pretty obvious in my day to day use the 7200rpm performs much better than 5400rpm, with little power hit.

I think given the price of storage, I'd rather save the $50 and get a better performing 500GB. That is a lot of space; I use to feel constrained by 320GB, but not so much with 500GB.

 

I've bought two Seagates in my lifetime. One was many years ago ~60GB for frame of reference. The latest was the 500GB 7200.4. Both drives failed inside 10 days. I would have tried again with the latest drive, but the failure rate is too frequent. I am going WD, as I have had great experience with them as well as IBM/Hitachi. You say speed, some say capacity, but I say reliability is most key.

 

Wow, sorry to hear that. I have had hundreds of drives over the years.
In the past few years, Seagate, WD and Hitachi have all been top notch. Never had any failure with those drive. After some fun with Toshiba and Fujitsu drives over the years, I avoid them like the plague.

I stick with those three, and never have an issue. For me, the top three are equal in reliability, but everyone has their own experiences.

 

From what I hear the Seagate 5400 drives are fine, but not as fast as WD. I figure since its out there and the best performer of the 5400 rpm drives that I'd get the 640 and call it done. This will likely be my last spinning drive, so I'll make it count.

 

The Seagate 500GB 7200RPM drive wasn't that good (in comparison to it's theoretical performance), possibly due to its premature release. The Hitachi 7K500 seems a lot faster than any other drive ATM. If you want to read some discussion check out:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=422706
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=422895

 

I want to... and I am now. Thanks again!

 

The thing is, do you really need that much space on your laptop? Do you need to carry around 640GB of data with you? The only common reason I can think of is if you do some intensive HD video editing on the go.

It's much more economical (and gives better performance) to get a smaller, but faster hard drive and then use cheap 3.5" external HDs with large amounts of storage space to store data you will not use on the go.

That's the main reason why I'll soon be moving to an 80GB SSD + a 3.5" HD at home base

 

In my work, I use video quite a bit, but in a nontraditional way. As a scientist I capture video of my experiments. Data analysis and etc. involves manipulating that video quite a bit. Couple that with my music library... And, well lets just say that the space is definitely needed. I will go SSD in my next laptop though, but exclusively... I'm envisioning a 512 GB SSD, decent WSXGA+ LED, and an i7 to top it off. Before I'd carry around an extra drive I'd move up to a 17" three spindle system... I'd rather lug one beast than two pieces that add up to the same thing... I know, I'm nuts... LOL!