Thinkpads Forum

Seagate Momentus 7200.3 320GB T61p Windows XP SP3


Note : cool and very quiet (own test)



Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB T61p Windows XP SP3


Note : too noisy for me. Best performer. (own test)



Hitachi Travelstar 7K320 320GB


Note : long access time, heats. Graph from Rons (T61p Windows Vista ?)

Seagate wins right.

yeah... <sigh>...


edit: for a backtrack, one of the graphs above was from my T60p, discussed on this thread: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ht=hitachi

After seeing this I'm keen on getting the largest available 5400rpm drive my T61 would take. Seems the perfomance between a 320GB 5400rpm is the same as a 7200rpm drive, something to do with the platters.

I'm extremely happy with it. I haven't experienced any of the heat issues on the palm rest that others have complained about. Drive is must faster (in my opinion) than the 7200 rpm 160 gig Seagate drive the unit came with. I can't comment on the WD or Seagate that is comparable in size and speed, but I am extremely pleased overall.

FYI.....this was installed in my T61P.

I'm using the 5400 rpm Samsung in my T61 Ultrabay and it works great and is very quiet. It is under $100 at newegg now. For about 2x the price you can get a 500gb 5400 rpm. I think I'd rather have that than a 320gb 7200rpm. If rotation speed matters that much then I'd rather fix the problem with more ram and/or a solid state disk.

I put the Travelstar in my T400 and haven't had any heat problems.

Were these tested on the same computer (not the same type, the exact same computer)? I see different versions of the software, and different versions of the operating system, so I'm a little curious as to the validity of the results.

I won't change the deal because hdtach access directly hardware. Different rev just add new Windows support.

Pascal_TTH wrote:I won't change the deal because hdtach access directly hardware. Different rev just add new Windows support.

Here's is why I doubt numbers unless they are run on the same computer, same OS, same disk image, same everything.

My brand new Hitachi HTS723232L9A FC40 320GB drive gave the following numbers using HD Tach 3.0.4.0:

Quick bench:
Random access: 16.1ms
CPU Util: 6%
Average read: 65.2MB/s
EDIT: Burst was 112.2 MB/s

Long bench:
Random access: 16.2ms
CPU Util: 5%
Average read: 64.4MB/s
EDIT: Burst was 113.8MB/s

HD Tune 2.55 results:
Transfer minimum: 38.7MB/sec
Maximum: 77.8MB/sec
Average: 62.4MB/sec

Access Time: 16.0ms
Burst Rate: 74.3MB.sec
CPU Usage: 3.4%

This was under Windows XP SP3, and I will be testing from the exact same image when my Seagate arrives - on the same machine.

HD Tune shows the temp at a consistent 37 C.

Nice, uplaod the pict, I will edit firt post. Rons graph show very long access time. BTW, I found the Scorpio graph done with my T61p XP SP3.