Thinkpads Forum

Well, ran some quick benchmarks. In compatibility mode, the Hitach 7200 vs 5400 100G HDD using the large set. Wish I had the exact same settings on both, but that will have to wait till my next build.

A mostly full 7200 RPM Hitachi running Win2003 server. Probably needs a defrag too...
(hts721010g9sa00)

Random Access: 15.1 ms
Average Read: 43.1 MB/s
Burst 116.5 MB/s

A mostly empty 5400 RPM Hitachi running XP sp2.
(hts541010g9sa00)

Random Access: 18.6 ms
Average Read: 32.6 MB/s
Burst 113.5 MB/s

I did run the Win2003 server in Native mode as well, but saw the burst score was about the same. Did not think to look at the other stats at that time. (argh)

Both OS's were fresh installs - not the factory XP install. T60p w/2G of RAM.

Thanks for the bench! Can you do another test?
It would be interesting to know if the acoustic option has an effect on the drive performance or not. In Notebook Hardware Control, there is 2 options for acoustic management, quiet (128) and loud (256).

Notebook Hardware Control - where is that? Keep in mind, both installs are bog stardard with the normal drivers installed. No IBM tools and other stuff.

click on the hard disk tab. You should easily find it. There is power management and acoustic management.

Acoustic management has no noticeable impact, I tested it a while ago:
http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/detail.php?id=92