Release date of Seagate or Hitachi 100gb 7200 drives?

[zgco]

I am nearly out of room on my 60GB 7200, and just wanted to konw if anyone knew when either the Seagate or Hitachi 100GB 7200 drive are due for release? Is it worth waiting for Hitachi over Seagate or vice versa? Does anyon have an impression to offer on the Seagate 100gb 5400 momentus? Cheers, zgco

[jdhurst]

My question is one of pure curiousity, not criticism.

I have a 60 Gb drive. It holds 6 different fully functional computers, each with a different Office Suite: Windows XP Pro (main system); Windows 2000; Windows NT4; Windows 98SE; DOS 6.3; and RedHat Linux 7.3. I keep all my documents (1Gb), all my application, driver and setup files for many different computers (4Gb) and a host of other files and stuff. I still have 26Gb free. I want a spare XP machine with Office XP (6Gb), but that would leave me with 20Gb free. How do you manage to fill up a 60Gb drive? I still haven't filled up a 40Gb drive (but I am getting close).
... JD Hurst

[fargusmax]

My question is one of pure curiousity, not criticism.

I have a 60 Gb drive. It holds 6 different fully functional computers, each with a different Office Suite: Windows XP Pro (main system); Windows 2000; Windows NT4; Windows 98SE; DOS 6.3; and RedHat Linux 7.3. I keep all my documents (1Gb), all my application, driver and setup files for many different computers (4Gb) and a host of other files and stuff. I still have 26Gb free. I want a spare XP machine with Office XP (6Gb), but that would leave me with 20Gb free. How do you manage to fill up a 60Gb drive? I still haven't filled up a 40Gb drive (but I am getting close).
... JD Hurst

I've found it's pretty easy once you start ripping your DVDs to XVid in order to watch them on the road without carrying around a big cd case full of em. Plus putting some of these things on the hard drive saves wear and tear on the original copies. Of course, the MPAA/RIAA want to eliminate the ability to make your own backup copies, but until they succeed (its only a matter of time) - it's still legal. Ahhhh fair use...how I loved thee...

This is what kills off my hard drive space. Everyone else's mileage may vary....

Rob

[glgermain]

The answer to that is easy: music and video.

[jdhurst]

In that case, a person might consider a second hard drive (100Gb - 5400 rpm or thereabouts) in an ultrabay. Performance would be fine and you would have more overall space. ... JD Hurst

[UCI2CI]

just wondering, what is the biggest notebook hard drive out right now that would fit the T42s?
Im getting tired of hauling around this maxtor external drive

[lfeagan]

Question: What is biggest drive out there now for a notebook?
Answer: 100GB 5400 RPM drives. There a number of companies which make this type of drive. But!! there should be some 7200rpm 120GB drives right around the corner. At least that is my prediction.

[w0qj]

had a similar discussion a few weeks ago:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=6265

<repeat quote as below>
ETA on 80 GB 7200 RPM?

1. sources say hitachi plan to come up with SATA II (with NCQ-Native Command Queque) 2.5"" hard drive "by end of 2004".
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/storage/di ... 35023.html
no idea if this will include 7200RPM models.

hopefully they will be ready in Q1 of 2005?

2. seagate also in past few months stated they "plan to introduce by end of 2004" 7200RPM notebook hard drives.

so hopefully early next year there will be some competition in the 7200RPM notebook HDD market to bump up the storage capacity.

3. one review rated Hitachi's new 5K100 "almost same speed" as the 7K60. (reviewer used E5K100, which is basically same as 5K100).

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

- - - -
[Edit]: i'm still waiting for Hitachi Travelstar 5K100 to be widely available in Asia (Hong Kong). it's still vapourware as far as i'm concerned--just can't buy it.

i'm beginning to suspect Hitachi will be coming out in Q1 of 2005 with SATA2 hard drives, which include 2.5" notebook drives.

don't know if they will also release 7200 RPM drives then with the new SATA2 hard drive interface.