WD Scorpio or Seagate Mmomentus for M860TU, which is cooler?

Ok. So should I go for the Seagate already?

 

I think you should, if you cant live with a 320gb 7200rpm
There isnt any other faster alternative short of an SSD.
If there was a decent capacity SSD that was affordable I would mention to get it, but none exists yet.

You may have trouble finding a 7200.4, because seagate needed to optimize their firmware after the first batch shipped. I really do not like seagate because they ship a product before it is perfected. You can take the jump and get it, but if it dies dont blame me

K-TRON

 

I´m ordering a 5K500.B, will receive early April. Hopefully it´s cooler.

 

Ahh. But are their hard disk not firmware upgradeable by the end-user? Why don't they do that anyway?

 

Now that explains why currently Hitachi HDDs have the lowest failure rate

Wait for Hitachi, you won't regret it

And this explains why currently Seagate HDDs have the highest failure rate

Good choice mate

Actually, it's up to the vendor.
Seagate released firmware update for the troubled Barracuda 7200.11, but you can't upgrade it yourself IIRC. On the other hand, when IBM (now Hitachi) have the same problem with Deskstar series back in 2000-2001, they released the firmware upgrade software to public.

 

Ok. I think I would wait for the Hitachi then

Does my laptop have a limit on how many GB of hard disk it can handle?

 

All modern HDDs uses 48-Bit addressing. So theoretically, current hardware (including your laptop) doesn't have capacity limitation.

 

Ok Thanks.

 

You're welcome
And a +rep will be very appreciated

 

Since 2002, when i got my first desktop, till now, i have been using Seagate HDD and i never had any issues. Because i work with graphics, i leave my laptop rendering for days, so HDD reaches those quite hellish temperatures (65C). Nevertheless my Clevo with the Seagate 7200.2 160gb inside of it performs perfectly. Looking forward for Seagate 7200.4 to show up in Europe.

 

Bump for info that might be relevant.

I used to get 65 degrees and higher on my internal HDD easy.(I've even seen 70)

This has since changed so that I've never gone above 60 degrees.
This is even after 100GB xfers between drives or defrags or long periods of multiple file compression and decompression.

A hdtune test previously would set me at 60+ degrees now It barely reaches 54 degrees. My performance scores have also gone up a few MB/s

Things I changed.

1) Installed Win 7
2) Installed the Intel Matrix Drivers and changed my drive mode from IDE to ACHI.
Guide here http://forum.notebookreview.com /showpost.php?p=4297700&postcount=1525

I dunno if either of these was what helped but its weight off of my mind.

 

I noticed that Win7 runs a bit hotter than XP for me (4 degrees or so); the biggest difference is indexing being turned on in Win7. You might want to compare temps with and without having indexing turned on (right click on your hard drive).

 

havent tried Windows 7. looking forward to it.
but since the D-Day is just few months away, I guess I better wait the full version.

 

guys,

could some post HT Tune result for 5400rpm drive? i need the biggest capacity... how much 5400rpm drive slower than 7200rpm one?

regarding Seagate 7200.4. Although i've got used to use Seagate for years, that story with 7200.11 (and especially that Seagate kept silence saying that "the rate of broken HDDs is nornal" although it was evident that smth really wrong) make me a "bit" worry... I do not want to blame them, in those days Seagate produced the fastest and reliable HDD, but now...

 

Mine (old model (3 spindle) Hitachi 5400rpm, 300GB)'s min is 45MB/s and maxes at 60-62MB/s, access time is 27ms (high). I don't know the specs for an expected 7200rpm, but I'd assume that they would be similar to desktop ones, which max (well, based on my 'near 7200rpm WD Green drive in eSATA') at 90MB/s, access of 14ms. So about 50% less than a 7200rpm, probably a bit less because the tested drive (90MB/s) was an external and not one I ran an OS/running programs on.

I think the thing that people are doing is either getting a 7200.4 Seagate drive (sort of in stock now) or waiting until April, when a new model of Hitachi (more reliable due to better testing, instead of rushing deadlines, I hear?) comes out. I think that info is in this thread...

 

not really bad, man, especially for "old model" in comparison with 7200 rpm models results, posted on the 1st page (min 35-40, max -80).

i read reports on newegg about 7200.4. people complaining that it's very noisy and vibrating (not balanced enough???) and on top of this somewhere else (might be overclockers?) that they are really hot. it really scares, coz i wanted to ask Justin_W to get Seagte 7200.4 for me. it looks more wise to wait smth until Hitachi will be available.

over 2 years ago i bought Hitachi HDD for my old lappy and till now it works perfectly.

 

I have a 7 year old seagate drive from back when I built my first PC which is still running beautifully.

I have also had 3 samsung hard drives die on me in the last 6 months. first one randomly at 1yr old, then its replacement (though it was knocked off a table by a 'friend') and one BRAND NEW less than one month old 1TB drive

 

if you read the newegg user review, you will find the fact that both Samsung and Seagate has a high failure rate currently.

I said "currently" because each HDD vendor has its own "dark ages".

And Hitachi, "currently", have the lowest failure rate. Problems with Hitachi HDDs usually is DOA and that's because Newegg ship their HDDs with bad packaging.

 

check the 2.5" HDD review article at tomshardware.com.
or check their 2.5" HDD chart.

currently, Seagate Momentus 7200.3 has the highest read/write speed with 89-90MB/s while Hitachi Travelstar 7K320 reach 80-81MB/s.

i think when 2.5" HDDs reach the same GB/inch as their 3.5" HDDs counterpart, we will finally see on par performance between 2.5" HDD and 3.5" HDD.

I even think with the same density, 2.5" HDD will have better read/write speed and access time because the platter is smaller and thus making a shorter stroke for the HDD actuator.

 

tomshardware is a complete joke.
The 7K320 doesnt come close to 90mb/sec
It peaks at just shy of 75mb/sec. I have three 7K320's and have installed numerous 320gb and 160gb 7K320 upgrades for friends. None of them have surpassed 75mb/sec

When reading newegg reviews take them with a grain of salt. Most people who review them review the product the second they get it, stating all kinds of nonsense which isnt true.

Most 7200rpm desktop drives have faster access times than the 2.5" drives. This is because the actuator arm on the 3.5" drives has a larger diameter, thus it runs a more efficient path on the disc than a 2.5" drive with a smaller diameter.

K-TRON

 

1. Perhaps you use different software benchmark than Toms? Toms used h2w something (i forgot), not HD Tune.

2. Yup, i know we cant rely on newegg user review. But the Seagate 7200.11 high failure problem already "foreseen" by user reviews at newegg. So, i still read it... with a grain of salt

3. actually, there is an article about how short stroke can increase your HDD performance. and that's why I conclude 2.5" HDD with the same density as the 3.5" will have better performance.

Anyway, you ever try to RAID-0 3x HDD 2.5" HDDs or more?
I'm curious how much the performance gain of RAID-0 for HDD 2.5".

 

My WD Scorpio Black 320GB peaks at 79.3 MBps

 

The software toms uses makes no difference, because in real life performance you can see the values. I can run the same software as them on any one of my 7K320's and get different values. If you look hard enough alot of their articles are biased and wrong, they do this because its paid advertising. All it takes is one company to pay Toms to rate their product good and they can make up any review they want to state that fallacy, and they post it for us users who claim it as true.

Short stroking does work, but it is still slower than a desktop harddrive no matter how you look at it. Heads moving in a more linear fashion are faster. Larger diameter pivot arms have a more linear movement across the platter than a smaller arm does.

RAID on notebooks is not a good choice. Almost every laptop uses a Software based RAID controller, which means poor performance and higher access times. Just look at the hdtune thread. People post their raid performance charts and its 2x faster. But is it really?
of course not. Run crystalmark or PCMARK and you will see that software raid 0 is nominally about 5-10% faster than a single disk, not 100% increase like hdtune shows.
This can be very different on desktops. Most desktops have software raid controllers but you can opt to buy a good raid card like a 3ware or a Areca, which can yield 80-90% performance increase from an additional drive. These raid cards are not cheap, and many need active cooling which is why they are not used in laptops

K-TRON

 

Toms Hardware used to be good, but nowadays, as k-tron says, they're plain crap

 

OK, thanks for the info guys.
How about Anandtech guys? Are they still reputable?

 

Good point, although I do have a 250GB Seagate from a bunch of years back, 7200.9 or something (3.5inch/desktop, so different model #s) that was notorious for dying, but mine's perfect after 5 years of heavy (many small files) use. So, ymmv.

Then again, I've never had a notebook drive fail, even an old Fujitsu one in an overheating notebook that would click when overheating (still works). They must clearly be rated for higher temps and better made compared to desktop ones, because they must withstand a tiny enclosure with usually bad cooling, I assume.

Exactly; I'd trade a bit slower for cooler + cheaper The "old model" is only significant for heat, I think, as newer models are supposed to run cooler and have fewer spindles.

Plus what K-Tron said: "Most 7200rpm desktop drives have faster access times than the 2.5" drives. This is because the actuator arm on the 3.5" drives has a larger diameter, thus it runs a more efficient path on the disc than a 2.5" drive with a smaller diameter" - there's much smaller differences in speeds for notebook drives, and transfer rates are not completely coupled with rotational speeds.

Anandtech's still reliable, or shall I say - check their forums and see what they're talking about (as opposed to articles).

Also, agreed with K-Tron about notebook RAIDs/silly to run them/get an external and back stuff up.

 

ok, thanks for the info.