X-bit labs

2.5-Inch Hard Disk Drives with 7,200rpm Speed: Five Models Tested (page 10)

Category: Storage

by Andrey Kuznetcov

[ 03/03/2006 | 02:59 PM ]

Conclusion

So, we’ve just had an opportunity to compare the fastest hard disk drives of the 2.5” form-factor. 7200rpm drives of that size may be viewed as representing the technical potential of the manufacturer as flagship products do.

The selection of drives for this test session allows making some curious observations. For example, we can see how technologies are improving over time and how they affect the operating characteristics of Hitachi’s 60GB drives of the 7K60 and 7K100 families. There really is a considerable performance increase. The higher areal density results in higher linear read and write speeds and improves the performance in a number of real-life tests. The Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 60GB enjoys an advantage over the Hitachi Travelstar 7K60 60GB in most tests, with rare exceptions.

We can also see the effect of the interface on the drive performance. The UltraATA interface most modern 2.5” drives are equipped with has a theoretical bandwidth of 100MB/s against 150MB/s of Serial-ATA, but it doesn’t mean the latter interface is superior in practice. The maximum internal data-transfer rate of the reviewed drives is far within the limit of the external interface and our tests have proved this once again: the Seagate Momentus 7200.1 100GB ATA (ST910021A) with the traditional ATA interface is almost everywhere faster than its SATA-compatible mate Seagate Momentus 100GB SATA.

But what device is the winner of our tests? In fact, there are two drives that are worthy of one another – Seagate Momentus 7200.1 100GB ATA (ST910021A) and Hitachi 7K100 100GB (HTS721010G9SA00). These devices have achieved the highest results in most of the tests. The SATA-interfaced Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 100GB has won more tests in total, so it can be considered as the best among the presented devices.

You may want to consider it first if you need a high-performance HDD. If the SATA interface doesn’t suit you, the Seagate Momentus 7200.1 100GB ATA (ST910021A) may make a worthy alternative. Alas, the Seagate Momentus 7200.1 100GB SATA, which has also been in our focus, can’t contend with the two mentioned devices and does worse than its SATA-interfaced opponent from Hitachi. Still, its performance is high enough, so you may want to consider it as an option, too.