Fast HDD

[richarddd]

Any views on the Seagate 200gb 7200 HDD for my x61s, especially compared to the Hitachi (ignoring price)?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... e=7200+RPM

I'm looking for a noticeable increase in performance over the stock Hitachi 120gb/5400, without going to the insane pricing of an SSD

[ryengineer]

snip....I'm looking for a noticeable increase in performance over the stock Hitachi 120gb/5400, without going to the insane pricing of an SSD

Believe me you're going to find significant amount of improvement in 7200rpm drive regardless of the brand.

[Xtal]

The larger capacity 5400 drives also show great performance comparable to older 7200 rpm drives in some instances. Personally I'm waiting for the Samsung Spinpoint M6 500GB 5400 RPM drive which should be available in the next few weeks. The higher platter density on this drive translates to faster transfer rates, with the added benefit of future-proof capacity.

[richarddd]

Reportedly the 500gb drives will be 3 platter versions of the 320gb drives. They won't have higher data densities and therefore won't be any faster than the 320s.

The 200gb/7200s seem a bit faster than the 320gb/5400s. I can't tell if they are enough faster to make it worthwhile, and therefore have not yet bought.

Any views on the 200gb/7200 compared to the 320gb/5400 in terms of performance (including speed, heat and noise)? I don't really care about the capacity of costs differences.

The metrics on Tom's Hardware are inconclusive
http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage25 ... &chart=142
http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage25 ... &chart=153

[Xtal]

Reportedly the 500gb drives will be 3 platter versions of the 320gb drives. They won't have higher data densities and therefore won't be any faster than the 320s.

Forgive me if i'm wrong but wouldn't adding an extra platter increase the transfer speed by 50%? If I understand correctly a file does not reside on a single platter, rather it is split evenly between platters. By increasing the number of platters from 2 to 3, instead of 4 heads there are now 6 that can read/write simultaneously.

[hart22]

Forgive me if i'm wrong but wouldn't adding an extra platter increase the transfer speed by 50%? If I understand correctly a file does not reside on a single platter, rather it is split evenly between platters. By increasing the number of platters from 2 to 3, instead of 4 heads there are now 6 that can read/write simultaneously.

I felt this way for a while too. But a few weeks ago as I was doing research on an HD upgrade I came across the data sheet for the 7K200 series, available here. As the specs reveal, the 200 GB version (2 high density platters) and 100 GB version (1 high density platter) have the same maximum media transfer rates. Similarly, the 160 GB version (2 lower density platters) and the 80 GB version (1 lower density platter) have the same maximum media transfer rates, in this case lower than the 200 & 100 GB versions. And the 120 GB version utilizes 2 platters of the same lower density as the 160 & 80 GB versions, but of presumably smaller platter size, thus achieving the same maximum media transfer rate as the 160 & 80 GB versions.

So it would appear that it is the rotational speed and areal density which determine transfer rates, not number of heads.

Another consideration is disk latencies. Higher transfer rates mean little in many contexts if access times are high, such as the case for the SpinPoint M6 320 GB version, because in real-world situations many small files are accessed from different locations.

Edit: For the OP, consider this product, available soon. At 250 GB and 7200 RPM, I imagine it uses 2 x 125 GB platters, for a high rotation and higher density solution. This should be faster than existing 200 GB (2 x 100 GB platters) 7200 RPM HDs. And I'm sure other manufacturers, such as Seagate and Hitachi, will be announcing similar products soon. It's simply a question of how urgently you need the drive now, vs. how much you want the extra performance.

[thormdac]

I have experimented quite alot with various 5400 and 7200 plates, upto the hitachi HTS722020K9S.
Resulting in , yes a petite amount of speed improvement in trade for sometimes extreme gains in temperature!

the hitachi came in at upto 47 degrees !, comparing to the current old fashioned 5400 HTS541080G9SA00 running at maximal 32 degrees!!!
in my x60 using xp!
as far as this drastic increase in temperature goes, as far as i can see there is no reason for me whatsover to use a 7200!