Quick look: Hitachi 7K320 in a T60p (embedded pics)

[RonS]

I received a Hitachi 7K320 drive last week, with 320GB and 7200RPM. I have it installed in my T60p running Vista 64. I used Acronis True Image 11 and, since I dual-boot with Windows XP, I had to follow the instructions at here to re-map the drive letters.

This drive is fast - significantly faster than the 7K200 I upgraded from. And it's extremely quiet - I can only hear it when I put my ear up to the the drive bay in the Thinkpad, and then only very faint clicks. I would say that for everyday use it's virtually silent.

Under Windows Vista 64, the Windows Experience Index showed drive performance for the 7K200 at 5.3, and the 7K320 at 5.7.

I used HDTach to benchmark the 7K200 and the 7K320 on the exact same machine and with the exact cloned configuration. The reports show that the 7K200 average read speed is 53.2MB/s and burst 115.4MB/s, while the 7K320 average read speed is 66MB/s and burst 126.2MB/s. Of course, these bencharmarks are synthetic and real-world performance will not show this much speed improvement. Still, this shows a 9% - 24% read speed improvement, which is fantastic given this capacity.

HDTach results for 7K200:


HDTach results for 7K320


Edited to make the image links point to pages without flashing ads.

[DAH]

The above is for a Western Digital Scorpio Black WD3200BEKT 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard run under Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit, (using compatibility mode for Windows XP service pack 2) The machine has been up for 24 plus hours, and 7 IE windows are open in the background. Under Vista HD performance is calculated on both speed and size if you have not partition the entire drive as a single drive your HD performance index will not be as high as it potentially could be.

[SHoTTa35]

hmm.. these drives are looking great. 90MB reads (highs) sounds pretty toasty. The highest i've seen my old 5400RPM drive go is like 48MB!

Time for SSDs though in my opinion

[Pascal_TTH]

Western Digital Scorpio Black WD3200BEKT 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Windows XP.

[Tony Chan]

Did you observed any measurable battery run time improvement with the new drives?

[marvel]

That and heat.

Thanks for the graphs!

[Pascal_TTH]

Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB stays 2 hours in my T61p. After, I get it off because of the noise ! Just side the drive bay 45,5 dbA with the Scorpio vs 42,1 dbA for the Momentus 200GB.

I will send the drive back. It really cover the low fan noise of the T61p. I have a very silent and powerfull laptop, I don't want a noise drive ruin my pleasure to enjoy the silence.

The noise is not constant, it sounds like pumping up when the drive is active. Gonna wait for the new Seagate. Htachi have too poor access time.

[commander]

Thank you RonS for superb information

Where you bought it? I want the BDE version, but I cannot find it anywhere

[Mike1960]

Please tell me what is the best ( silence ) nb HDD.
I don`t need speed. 5400rpm for me it is enough. I need space.
I know Fujitsu hdd are 24db, 320gb, 8mb, 5400rpm. WS 26db. 320gb, 8mb, 5400rpm.

Thanks in advance

Mike

[pae77]

The original poster already told you the new Hitachi he reviewed was virtually silent. He had to put his ear up against it to hear anything at all. You can have speed and silence. No need to trade one for the other.

RonS: Thanks for the nice review. I'm looking forward to getting a pair of those new Hitachi drives, eventually, when I can get a really good deal on them.

[qviri]

The original poster already told you the new Hitachi he reviewed was virtually silent. He had to put his ear up against it to hear anything at all.

Since the T60p runs its fan vast majority of the time, that doesn't necessarily mean much. The noise could just be masked by louder fan noise.

[RonS]

OP here. When undocked, I normally run with a power profile with adaptive CPU speed, so the CPU spends most of its time at 1.0 GHz and thus the fan is hardly moving (unless I'm doing graphics intensive aps, which I haven't for a while). I run with adaptive speed to keep the fan noise down and improve battery life.

NOISE: The 7K320 is, in my opinion, the quietest laptop drive I've ever owned. And I've owned a lot of them. However, with the exception of one or two early 2.5" drives, hard drive noise has never bothered me. If you're sensitive to drive noise, you should certainly get more opinions than just mine.

HEAT: The 7K320 seems to run cooler than the 7K200. With the 7K200, I could feel the heat coming through the palm rest. With the 7K320, I can still feel it but just barely.

POWER: I don't know if it's drawing less power or not. I haven't done any battery run-down tests. If it's putting out less heat, I would guess that it also uses less power, but again - just a guess.

I bought the drive a www.macsales.com for $199.48 including shipping. The only reason I upgraded is because I needed the extra storage and I got tired of swapping a second hard drive for the DVD in the slim bay. If I didn't need the extra room, I would have stayed with the 7K200 - it's still a great drive.

[flypenfly]

Interesting, I just ordered the 7K200 from OWC for $110 or so. Maybe I should have sprung for the 7k320

[pae77]

Well I'm starting to find my 200 GB 7k200 to be running out of space. Problem for me is I buy them in pairs because I like to have an identical cloned backup of my primary HD ready to go at all times. So I would have to buy two of them which is a little expensive for me right now. I'm just going to have to stop being lazy and burn a bunch of video and photo stuff over to DVDs to "extend" the useful life of my 7k200's while I wait for the bigger one to get a bit cheaper.

[Mike1960]

Thanks All

I change from Fujitsu 320GB 5400 to WD 320 7200.
Perfect. Same HDD noise.

Mike

[agarza]

RonS, have you owned a PATA 7K100 drive. Right now it sits on the Ultrabay on my T61. It is noisy, and after comparing it to the WDC_WD800BEVS-08RST2 my T61 came with I should say the performance on the 7K100 is slightly better than the Western 80GB drive.

So in terms of upgrading, should you state the 7K100 is noisier than all of its predecessors 7K200 and 7K320?

[gator]

I don't know about the 7k320, but the 7k200 is less noisier than the 7k100.

[Tony Chan]

My 7k320 160Gb drive hasn't arrive yet so I can't comment on it's performance, but when I upgraded my 7k100 to 7k200 I definitely see improvement both in noise and performance.

[RonS]

I have both a PATA and SATA version of the 7K100, which are currently shelved. It was a long time ago, but I think the 7K100 was a little noisier than the 7K200. I'm far more interested in performance than noise, so don't pay too much attention to noise.

I just found an old postof mine where I commented that the 7K100 was noisier than the 7K60.

SIDE NOTE: You know you're "loosing it" when you google information on a problem and it points you to one of your own posts back on this forum. It happens to me every now and then.

[agarza]

OK Thanks Ron.

A review on Tom's Hardware indicate the Momentus 7200.3 is the best drive, in raw data transfer 89MB/s, have lower power consumption over the Hitachi with the exception of reading a .VOB DVD file which the Hitachi won in the voltage contest.

[RonS]

Wow - the 7K320 is on sale right now for $135 at this link

[Brad]

When will these drives be available in shipped ThinkPads?

Brad

[Tony Chan]

Just to report back. I've installed 160Gb version of 7k320 and it is indeed runs slightly cooler than 100Gb version of 7k200. It makes a bit less noise than ( the already very quiet ) 7k200. As far as speed the new drive doesn't "feel" faster than my 7k200.

Cost around $80 ( $99 minus 20 MIR at Zipzoomfly ).

[wswartzendruber]

Mine gets 5.8 under 64-bit Vista on the machine in my sig.

[Pascal_TTH]

Seagate Momentus 7200.3 320 GB


Average read 73 MB/s
Access : 15,8 ms

[RonS]

Pascal_TTH didn't say in his post, but that's apparently a Seagate Momentus 7200.3 320GB drive that he benchmarked. Nice numbers! It looks like it beats my Hitachi 7K320.

[phrider]

Has anyone found the BDE 320 GB version of the Hitachi 7k320 drive?

Hitachi USA claims they are shipping but I can't find it at any of Hitachi's claimed retailers (or macsales.com).

[Crunch]

That's great. I have the Ultrabay SATA bay drive, and I'd like to get two of these babies.

Can you tell me why you chose the three times more expensive drive rather than this one:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST3320620AS/

or this one,

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST3320620A/

which are both around $65, vs. $165 before any applicable sales tax?

Was it brand name mostly, or is the additional speed very noticeable, or mostly only measurable? Is bootup, application execution, and large file transfers significantly faster?

I am with you on the whole noise thing. It doesn't really bother me. I find the 200GB 7,200 rpm drives I have now to be super quiet. I'd love to get two 500GB and have 1TB of internal storage, but 7,200rpm drives are pretty awesome, which is why I'm asking concerning the speed.

I don't mind spending the money. I just want to make sure I'm getting what I need out of the products I purchase.

Thanks...

[phrider]

Crunch,

The drives that you highlight appear to be 3.5 inch drives, not 2.5 inch laptop drives.

I don't know about your UltraBay, but mine can only take 2.5 inch drives.

[Crunch]

Ahh...gotya. Yea, the the other two don't say the drive size. I was trying to find as to whether or not they were 3.5", or 2.5". Yes, my UB drive bay is also 2.5". Looking at it again, RonS's drive is the only one that advertises 2.5". Coolness.

That would make sense then. Alright, do I need to know anything else? I'm going to look for some e-coupons, and order away!

By the way, 3GB/sec.? My UB is 1.5GB/s. What's the internal HDD's speed of a T60p?? Maybe I should get ONE of the fast 320GB ones, and a 500GB 5,400?? Hmmm...