Hitachi 7200 vs 5400rpm drives

[sktn77a]

Well, after getting his T42 back up to snuff (new LCD screen per my previous post) my son proceeds to tell me that he doesn't have enough space on his 100gb Hitachi 7k100 HDD. Rather than spend the whole week searching through his drive and cleaning out all the duplicate MP3s, porn and other stuff that shouldn't be there, I just put in a hitachi 5k160, based on reports that the bigger 5400 rpm drives were faster than their older, smaller ancestors and he probably wouldn't notice a difference anyway. Well, I can confirm that the 7k100 IS a much faster drive on everyday operations (loading, reading, writing).

The computer is fine and he didn't notice a difference - he just wanted to play his music and IM his friends!

What a waste!!!

[syedj]

I also concur, despite good reviews about the newer bigger 5400 RPM drives, they are still ways behind in performance than even older 7200 RPM drives.

[ajkula66]

Agreed. Hitachi 5400rpm drives do feel slower (and probably are) then their 7200rpm siblings.

However, Seagate and Fujitsu 5400rpm drives, for some reason, feel faster. I was very pleased with Seagate 120GB/5400rpm that replaced my own Seagate 80GB/7200rpm in the last A31p I owned...

My $0.02 only...

[aaa]

A 5k160 isn't exactly the greatest 5400... it's pretty old and thus a bit slower than newer ones. From their specs, you have 540mbits for the 5k160 vs 629mbits for the 7k100 vs 826mbits for the hm160hc. Though the 7200rpms always win on the latency front.

[RogerBlake]

I've just purchased a T42P off Ebay and unfortunately the seller has swapped the specified Hitachi 7200rpm 60GB with a Fujitsi 5400rpm 80GB and is trying to convince me it's a better disk. The system does also have a 2.0 GHz 755 processor rather than a 1.8GHz 745 but my gut instant is that the disk speed is far more important in practice.

Has anyone here got a feel for comparing these two: a Fujitsu MHV2080AH and Hitachi HTS726060M9AT00
One implication he made - which I have never heard before - was that the Hitachi 7200rpm disks are unreliable. However my two previous Hitachi disks have been absolutely fine.

Thanks in advance for any comments. I'm delving through these forums for other disk information so may request further info at some point !

Roger

[aaa]

Has anyone here got a feel for comparing these two: a Fujitsu MHV2080AH and Hitachi HTS726060M9AT00
One implication he made - which I have never heard before - was that the Hitachi 7200rpm disks are unreliable. However my two previous Hitachi disks have been absolutely fine.

He's making up stuff. Make him give you $20 or something to make up for it. I'd want to change the disk too, but I wouldn't send the whole thing back.

[Johan]

Roger:

I am using, and have been using 7200 rpm Hitachi HDD's ("Travelstar") in T42/p's for years, and my experience is that they are fast and low-noise and reliable, too. While some of the newest, large-cache 5400 rpm PATA/IDE HDD's have been claimed to be practically as fast as the (older) 7200 rpm PATA/IDE HDD's, owing to the higher platter-density of the newer 5400 rpm HDD's, I would however personally insist in getting the 7200 rpm HDD, and then use the free Hitachi-tool Drive Fitness Test to check this reliability-issue out myself. It is by far easier to find a new or old 2.5" PATA/IDE 5400 HDD than it is to find a 2.5" PATA/IDE 7200 HDD, as evident e.g. from the thread Hitachi website - 7K100, 100 GB PATA HD is unavailable.

As to the slower CPU, I would certainly also insist in getting the 2.0 GHz! What a suspect seller...!

Johan

[sktn77a]

I have used Hitachi, Toshiba and Fujutsu notebook drives over the last 10 years (about 10:2:1) and they have all been super reliable. You got stiffed on the drive, but as they are basically unavailable any more, I'd just chalk it up to experience. At least you got the 2.0GHz processor.

[RogerBlake]

You got stiffed on the drive,

not yet I haven't I'll be making him send me one of three Hitachi drives he has but claims are suspect - then I'll test it thoroughly with the help of the utility Johan kindly provided details of.

but as they are basically unavailable any more, I'd just chalk it up to experience

yes, this was a bit of a shock - last time I looked these drives were sold everywhere.
I'll see how the drive he finally send tests out otherwise I may go the SATA ultrabay slim route which I've seem mentioned in several posts - although even those are getting quite hard to find in the UK at least.

BTW Fujitsu 5400rpm drive "clicks" a lot - bad or not ?