5K100 vs. 7K60 speed in Hitachi Travelstar HDD

[w0qj]

Anyone tried the Hitachi Travelstar 5K100, and is it (almost) as fast as the 7K60 model?

i've heard that the increased data density somewhat improves data accessing time, perhaps making it almost as fast as a 7K60.

any thoughts?


i'm in a bind on how to replace my almost full 40MB hard drive, with either of the following:

a) 5K100 (is it as fast as the 7K60 -->any actual user comparison?)

b) 7K60 (60 MB is somewhat low, once you deduct the hidden partition info)

c) 5K80 (due to cost, if it's as fast as 5K100 i'll take it).

d) unfortunately cannot for the (upcoming?) 7K80 or 7K100 anymore ;(

[lfeagan]

i'm in a bind on how to replace my almost full 40MB hard drive...(

Yeah, I would imagine that whopping 40MB fills up really fast.

Now, getting back to your questions. Yes, the increased data density can help with the read/write speed. Though it doesn't help as much with the seek times. Those are pretty heavily rotation and stroke speed dependent. I will give my opinion on the subject of the 60GB drive. I found that the 40GB on my 2378FVU was very restrictive for someone who dual boots as I do. The 60GB drive in my T42p leaves me with a lot more free space and comfort room. I don't take my music on my actual notebook hard drive. (I have firewire drives at three locations with my music on them.) So, if you aren't going to keep any media files around, then the 60GB should be more than adequate. If, on the other hand, you want to keep various songs, etc around, then you really should get the 5K100 or 5K80. I think you would be much happier. The speed difference would show up mostly in random disk access times and read/write rates. Sequential reads on the larger disk might not only equal but could even better the 7k60 if long-stroked (As opposed to short-stroking for decreased seek times.) Unless you run something that makes lots of queries all over the disk, and virtually no single-user systems do this, then the 5k100 or 5k80 should serve you well.

[w0qj]

thanks for your quick reply!

> The speed difference would show up mostly in random
> disk access times and read/write rates.

the major reason i'm considering the (somewhat cramped) 7K60 is its speed.
i'm using X1 Desktop Search (www.x1.com) that indexes my 4GB office email and files all over my hard disk, and its constantly HDD scanning would well be improved by 7K60.

[Edit]: Wait a second! if you say sequential reads/writes may be faster on 5K100 or 5K80 (faster than 7K60), perhaps this would be better for my X1 Destop Search HDD scanning routine for my 4GB email files, provided it's not terribly fragmented... [/Edit]


tks your suggestion to offload some media files onto portable USB HDD's...
already done this!
oh, btw, this is on my T42 barely 2 weeks old, and 85% full on 40MB...


anyone with actual 5K100 vs. 7K60 experience?
would appreciate your inputs on this...

[w0qj]

here's a direct comparison between E5K100 and 7K60.

the author briefly said E5K100 is almost same performance as 7K60.

http://hi-techreviews.com/nuke/hitachi3/page3.htm


CONCLUSION:

The letter 'E' the E5K100 drive name must mean Extreme fast, because that is exactly what this drive is. Then you take a fast drive and give it an 8 MB cache and you end up with a hard drive that is truly a performance booster. So much so that adding this drive to my HTPC made the system respond so much faster that it acted as if it had been given a 500 MHz faster processor. but it will also make the average laptop user very happy knowing that their computer will not have the life drained from it as most other hard drives do while it works.

Acoustically this drive is far superior to any 2.5" we have used in our HTPC setup. Surprisingly before the loudest thing in our system had been the hard drive, but with the addition of E5K100 the noise is gone and the system is now 100% silent. So if you're looking for an upgrade for your Mini-ITX system or your laptop this is a definite hard drive to consider.

If you're in the market for a fast laptop drive or drive to put into your mini-ITX system like we were, then this drive should be given a very long look. One additional benefit of choosing this particular drive is the fact that it can be purchased as either a P-ATA or S-ATA drive. Combine that with its huge 8 MB cache and you end up with a drive that will provide you excellent service. Hitachi's 3-year warranty will also give you that little extra bit of comfort we all like to have knowing that sometimes parts do fail.


TESTING

While the E5K100 is designed for use in laptop computer...
...
As a comparison we have added two benchmarks for the Hitachi 7K60 hard drive which I have been using for a about a year now. The thing that is so striking about the two drives is they are the size, both have 8 MB buffer but the 7K60 has a spindle speed of 7,200 rpm whereas the E5k100 is only rated at 5,400 yet it still come very close to matching the numbers produced by the faster drive.

Test Setup
* i845GVD motherboard
* 512 MB PC-3200 DDR
* Intel Extreme Graphics
* Hitachi E5K100 Hard Drive

[zzyss]

All very good, except there doesn't seem to be anywhere which sells the E5K100? I've looked over everywhere and can't find it. What's the estimated price for this?