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by Andrey Kuznetcov
01/20/2004 | 11:40 PM
It is one of the strongest trends in the modern computer industry that production volumes of notebooks are on a rise. The demand is increasing as the users have substantial reasons for purchasing portable computers; the growing efficiency of the invested money and the technological maturation of notebooks are among those reasons.
<%BANNER[article]%>A big-diagonal and high-quality LCD screen coupled with a powerful graphics card allows you to work in heavy 3D applications on your notebook. Of course, the industry of small form-factor (2.5”) hard disk drives is growing, too. Such drives have been constantly developing their characteristics to match the performance advances in the processor, graphics and chipset directions.
Until quite recently, the spindle rotation speed of notebook HDDs was limited at 5,400rpm, and 2.5” models had been traditionally slower than their 3.5” counterparts. This couldn’t last for ever – the time called for certain changes.
Last year, Hitachi tried to change this situation and combined its own experience in HDD-making with the handed-over technologies from IBM to produce two new HDD families with a spindle rotation speed of 7,200rpm. This feature endows the drives with an opportunity to work as fast as their 3.5” counterparts on the classic ATA interface. It’s quite probable that Hitachi resorted to speeding up “notebook” hard disk drives in order to make them appropriate for desktop systems with their traditionally higher performance requirements. Considering that 2.5” HDDs can potentially replace 3.5” devices in ordinary computer systems, Hitachi did a wise thing having invested into this highly promising field.
Of course, the innovation from Hitachi is very interesting and we, at X-Bit labs, couldn’t leave it out. This time we are going to test a new 7,200rpm hard disk drive from Hitachi and compare its performance against other HDDs you can find in a modern notebook.
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Having received the HDD division from IBM, Hitachi has now become one of the most prominent manufacturers of 2.5” hard disk drives in this world. I should acknowledge that the company was not satisfied with an immediate gain resulting from the merger of the two manufactures, and continued working on new notebook hard disks. This article is devoted to one of the latest products developed by Hitachi in this field.
As you can guess from the name of the product family including only one model, The number “7” in the very beginning of the model name indicates the spindle rotation speed of 7,200rpm, and the two last digits stand for the storage capacity of 60GB. The drive uses two platters with the maximum data density of 30GB and four read/write heads. The buffer size is 8MB, the average seek time is 10msec, and the latency equals 4.2msec. The drive can withstand a non-operational shock of 1000g and an operational shock of 200g. The drive supports ATA-6 interface.
Some technologies, that define the nature of the product, have proven their efficiency back in 2.5” HDDs from IBM. For example, we could mention the special AFC magnetic layer aka antiferromagnetically-coupled “pixie dust” media, which allows higher data density.
The giant magnetoresistive (GMR) heads of the drive are highly sensitive to the magnetic fields of the platter, which makes allows increasing the capacity further.
The drive works on a fluid dynamic bearing motor that provides good shock absorption and better acoustic characteristics compared to the models built on traditional frictionless bearings.
Again, the spindle rotation speed of 7,200rpm brings about a significant performance gain over traditional 5,400rpm models. According to Hitachi, the data-transfer rate goes up by 15%, the latency is reduced by 20% and the average seek time becomes 20% faster.
Head load/unload technology came as a replacement to the older Contact Start-Stop one when the heads could physically touch the surface of the platter when the drive was halted. The new scheme implies that the heads are parked outside the platter. The advantages of the new parking method include higher data density, better shock absorption and reduced power consumption.
Adaptive Formatting technology implemented in hard disk drives from Hitachi allows achieving data density beyond 70Gbbit/sq.inch. The thing is that data density depends a lot on the implementation of Soft Error Rate Performance of the heads and production quality of such components as the same heads, for instance. Quoting Hitachi, “Every drive is individually tuned at the factory to match the heads and the media used in that specific HDD” and each drive “is formatted with an optimized Bit Per Inch/Track Per Inch combination” depending on the characteristics of the given head and media. As a result we get higher reliability and performance of the heads and platter surfaces. That is, the BPI parameter may differ between each platter/head combination and the transfer rate may vary between the heads. You can see the effect of Adaptive Formatting in the drive’s data transfer graph: it is “fuzzy” rather than step-like.
This hard disk drive also uses IBM’s Adaptive Battery Life Extender technology (ABLE) version 3.0. It helps to reduce the device’s power consumption, which is an important factor for a notebook HDD. There are four modes for the non-operational status:
When the drive falls into the standby mode, the technology dynamically selects the most appropriate sub-mode in respect to maximum power-saving and functionality. The choice depends on the current access patterns, that is, the response time of the drive also improves.
Femto Slider Design
The miniature size of the Femto Slider
against a ball-point pen
The drive features a positioner of the new design with a small head (Femto Slider) and carrier and, accordingly, low weight. The Femto Slider is 30% smaller than its predecessor called Pico Slider and weighs 63% less. This engineering solution helps to make the manufacture cheaper and to write more data onto a platter. Mechanical parameters have been also improved: shock resistance and better dynamics of the head on the actuator. This technology also saves a bit of power.
Besides the above-enumerated technologies, the 7K60 family drives feature time-tested inventions like True Track Servo, Drive Fitness Test (DFT) and S.M.A.R.T.
The price of the drive is $235.
Along with the 7K60 family, Hitachi also unveiled the 5K80 HDD series last year. This family includes four models of 20, 40, 60 and 80GB capacities (the drive we tested was 40GB big); all of them have a spindle rotation speed of 5,400rpm. The buffer size is 8MB, the average seek time is 12msec, and the latency equals 5.5msec. The model supports ATA-6 interface.
The list of technologies implemented in this HDD family is practically identical to the features of the 7K60 family: AFC “pixie dust” media, GMR heads, fluid dynamic bearings, Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML) digital channel, Adaptive Battery Life Extender (ABLE) 3.0, head load/unload, True Track Servo, Drive Fitness Test (DFT) and S.M.A.R.T.
Wow, I hope I missed nothing. No, there is one more thing: the drive is priced at $145.
These are the snapshots of a DK23FB-60 model:
The DK23FB hard disk drive family includes models with 20, 40 and 60GB capacities (we tested the latter two). They use platters of 30GB data density. The spindle rotation speed is 5,400rpm, the buffer size is 8MB, the average seek time is 13msec, and the latency equals 5.6msec. The drives are connected via the ATA-5 interface. The operational shock these drives can resist is 250g, non-operational is up to 800g.
Unfortunately, the manufacturer’s website doesn’t reveal any technological details about this family, which is Hitachi’s own development. However, the implemented technologies include: GMR heads, FDB motor, S.M.A.R.T., Embedded Sector Servo, Load/Unload Mechanism, ID-Less Format, ME2PRML Read Channel, CDR (Constant Density Recording), On-the-fly ECC Correction, Read-ahead Cache/Write Cache, Auto Read Reassign/Auto Write Reassign, Rotary Actuator, APM (Advanced Power Management).
The approximate price of the drive is $130 for a 40GB model and $185 for a 60GB one.
The 80GN HDD family includes three models: 20GB, 40GB and 80GB (this is the one we tested). The drives use platters with the data density of 40GB.
The spindle rotation speed for this family equals 4,200rpm. The buffer size varies from 8MB in the 80GB model to 2MB in the other two. The average seek time is 12msec, and the latency is 7.1msec. The drives support ATA-6 interface and withstand an operational shock of 200g and non-operational shock of 800g.
The 80GB HDD family uses a number of technologies developed by IBM: AFC «pixie dust» media, GMR heads, Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML) digital channel, Adaptive Battery Life Extender (ABLE) 3.0, head load/unload technology, FDB motors, Adaptive Formatting, True Track Servo, Drive Fitness Test (DFT) and S.M.A.R.T.
The drive will cost you $220.
The 40GN HDD family includes four models of 10, 20, 30 and 40GB storage capacities. We tested the last one. They use platters with 20GB data density. The spindle rotates 4,200 times a minute, and the cache buffer size is 2MB. The average seek time equals 12msec, and the latency is 7.1msec. The drives support ATA-5 interface. The shock parameters are the same as those of other drives from Hitachi: 200g operational and 800g non-operational shock resistance.
This HDD family uses the same pack of technologies from IBM as those implemented in the drives of the 80GN family, only Adaptive Formatting is missing in 40GN HDDs.
The price of this HDD is $125.
Seagate trumpeted its return into the market of 2.5” hard disk drives after a long absence with its Momentus family we have reviewed some time ago (see our Seagate Momentus HDD Review). The drives were a success from any point of view, but now they have to bear comparisons to the most advanced models from Hitachi and Toshiba.
Momentus drives come in two capacities: 20GB and 40GB (we’ve got a 40GB model for our tests). It means that the drive uses one 40GB platter and one or two heads. The spindle rotation speed is 5,400rpm, which is a standard de facto for 2.5” form-factor models. Momentus is usually equipped with a 2MB cache buffer, but 8MB is an option (this is the drive we’ve got). Naturally, the larger buffer brings in some performance gains. The drives support Ultra ATA/100 interface.
For detailed information about the Momentus, refer to our previous reviews. I will just list briefly its basic technical characteristics.
The exclusive SoftSonic electromotor on fluid dynamic bearings and the special QuietStep ramp load technology join together to make the device as noiseless as possible. The latter technology also increases the device reliability.
The special design helps the device withstand an operational shock of 225g and a non-operational shock of 800g.
Special tricks used in the Momentus drive make it require less power, so that its power consumption is closer to that of 4,200rpm models.
Now, there is also the exclusive 3D Defence technology you can see in any HDD from Seagate. It is a complex of hardware and software means increasing the drive’s reliability.
The drive is priced at $150.
This drive is the biggest (in capacity) among all 2.5” models from Toshiba – 80GB. The drive uses four heads and two platters with the maximum data density of 40GB. The buffer is 8MB big. I can’t call this one a fast model, since its spindle rotates at 4,200rpm only. Of course, this drive will not be a record-breaking racer among 2.5” models. The average seek time is 15msec for this drive, and the latency equals 7.14msec. The drive absorbs an operational shock of 190g and non-operational shock of 800g. It works with the ATA-6 interface.
Among its technical specifications available on the manufacturer’s website I can only point out the fluid dynamic bearings. Combined with the slow rotational speed this means the drive will produce ess noise at work.
This hard disk drive is priced at $220.
To have an insight into the potential capabilities of the drives reviewed today, we preferred to cling to the testing methodology we usually keep in store for desktop HDDs.
We used the following benchmarking software:
The testbed was configured as follows:
We ran the classical benchmark several times. First, the drives were formatted as one partition with their full capacity; next we created just one logical partition on them with a size of 32GB. We did this for both: FAT32 and NTFS. In the tables below the best results are highlighted in blue, and the lowest – in red.
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And these are the linear read graphs for the drives:
None of the drives revealed any problems concerning the quality of the media, save for the Hitachi IC25N040ATCS04-0 that belongs to the old Travelstar 40GN family. The graphs of the Hitachi drives from the Travelstar 80GN and 5K80 families display the effects of Adaptive Formatting technology: the transfer line is fluctuating with certain amplitude.
You see that the fastest model is the 7,200rpm Hitachi 7K60, at least in High-End Disk WinMark. In Business Disk WinMark Hitachi 7K60 was only outperformed by Seagate Momentus, but it proved faster than the rest of the devices. Another new product from Hitachi, the 5K80 drive, is also the second fastest. Hitachi DK23FB-60 was a little faster than the other member of the same family. Hitachi 40GN looks disadvantageous, since it is one of the oldest models with its senile diseases like low data density and spindle rotation speed as well as small cache (2MB).
Of course, we’ve got lower results in NTFS than in FAT32. Anyway, it is Hitachi 7K60 who wins the race. Again, it performs somewhat worse than Seagate Momentus in Business Disk WinMark, but surpasses every other drive. Hitachi 5K80 is again the second. Two devices showed the same High-End Disk WinMark rating: Seagate Momentus and Hitachi DK23FB-60. However, the Momentus drive is overall better as it has a higher Business Disk WinMark rating. The veteran - Hitachi 40GN - is again the slowest.
Of course, the results obtained for a 32GB partition were higher than those obtained for the entire HDD space. We created one 32GB FAT32 partition on each drive to see no dramatic changes in their ranks. Hitachi 7K60 is an indisputable winner, then comes Hitachi 5K80. Hitachi DK23FB drives show similar results, although the 60GB model seems a little better overall. Hitachi 40GN is in the very end of the race.
When we created just one 32GB NTFS partition on the drives, they performed faster than in case the entire storage capacity was involved. However, the ranking remained unchanged, with the Hitachi 7K60 winning the test. Another new product from Hitachi, 5K80, was the second, closely followed by Seagate Momentus. The outsider is again the same – Hitachi 40GN.
Using the DataBase pattern we measured the performance of the hard drives during read and write requests processing (with a changing ratio of reads/writes) and with a different request queue depth.
For a more illustrative analysis, I created three graphs for the three queue depths.
When the queue depth is only 1 request long, Hitachi 7K60 is overall better than the others. It only loses to Seagate Momentus when the writes share is 40-60%. This drive from Seagate takes the second place: it only slows down when the writes share is 80% and more. Among other devices, Hitachi 5K80, Hitachi 80GN, and Toshiba MK8025GAS look preferable. The latter drive is clearly slower than the other two at 0-40% writes share, but speeds up after that to outperform them at 50-80% writes share. We also see Hitachi 40GN occupying the last place. It is quite indifferent to the changes of the reads/writes ratio, although it is better than Toshiba MK8025GAS at low writes shares.
When the request queue depth equals 16 requests, we see some changes in the rankings. Hitachi 7K60 goes unrivalled again, as it only shows some weakness on 60% writes share. Seagate Momentus never loses its grip on the second place, and Hitachi 5K80 confidently occupies the third. The outsider has changed. Hitachi 40GN outperforms Hitachi 80GN when the writes share is below 70%. Toshiba MK8025GAS shows excellent “accelerating” qualities, starting from 40% writes share.
The graphs demonstrating the HDD performance in case of 256 requests queue depth haven’t changed much compared with the previous ones. Hitachi 7K60 is overall better than the other devices, and more Hitachi drives (of the DK23FB family) follow it. Seagate Momentus moved back to the fourth position and Hitachi 5K80 – to the fifth. There are no changes in the bottom of the table: Hitachi 40GN left the last place and looks better than Hitachi 80GN and Toshiba MK8025GAS that only speeds up at 50% and more writes share.
In this test the HDDs are handling a stream of read and write requests with a request queue depth of 4; the data block size changes every minute. The highest results are highlighted with blue in the tables and the lowest – with red.
Hitachi 7K60 is not inclined to give up its superiority; it is the fastest device. Meanwhile, it is not best, but rather average in reading small data blocks. The second new product from Hitachi – 5K80 – gets the second place in reading speed. Seagate Momentus is the third. Hitachi 40GN is the slowest of all. Note also the results of Toshiba MK8025GAS: excellent reading of small data blocks and the drive quickly gains its maximum speed – starting at 1KB blocks. Probably, some technological tricks in the drive electronics account for this performance.
The second diagram shows you the sequential write speed. Overall, we’ve got the same situation with the trio of the leaders and the outsider - Hitachi 40GN. Toshiba MK8025GAS is again working wonders with small-size blocks – it’s definitely better than the rest of the drives in this aspect.
The next two patterns make the tested drives do the duties of the disk subsystem of a typical file- or web-server.
As the diagram shows, Hitachi 7K60 is the best one more time at any request queue depth. It is even widening the gap as the queue depth increases. Seagate Momentus is good enough, as it’s better than the remaining drives until the request queue depth is 16. Hitachi 5K80 goes the third. Toshiba MK8025GAS looks poor in this test, losing to the others at small requests queue depths.
In order to rank the drives up in this test, I drew an additional diagram showing their integral performance ratings.
Emulation of a web-server (no write requests) brings no surprises: the same trio of leaders and Toshiba MK8025GAS in the very end of the race.
Integral performance ratings for the Webserver pattern:
Using the Workstation pattern, we checked out the performance of the drives under a workload typical for the disk subsystem of a workstation.
The first graph shows the results when the entire HDD capacity was involved. Again, Hitachi 7K60 goes unrivalled. As the data block size increases, it gets even farther ahead. Seagate Momentus takes the second place: it is pretending to compete with the leader on small data blocks, but gives up trying soon. Two Hitachi models – 5K80 and DK23FB-40 – are struggling for the third place. Toshiba MK8025GAS was the slowest here, just a little behind the unpredictable Hitachi 40GN.
The diagram above shows the total performance index for each drive so that we could position them more exactly. As you see, Seagate Momentus is doing well enough, in spite of the difference in the spindle rotation speeds (5,400rpm against 7,200rpm).
The graphs show the performance of the drives when only 32GB of their total capacity are used. Hitachi 7K60 feels all right under such conditions, and Seagate Momentus takes the second place without any problems. Hitachi DK23FB-60 and Hitachi 5K80 are arguing over the third place. Hitachi 40GN is the slowest of all (I wouldd say “traditionally”).
The integral performance rating doesn’t clear up the mess over the third place: Hitachi DK23FB-60 and Hitachi 5K80 both show the same result.
As usual, we used five standard patterns in FC-Test. The ISO pattern consists of three files, a few hundred megabytes each. The MP3 pattern includes a few dozens of files of the typical size – 1.5-8MB. Numerous and various files (from several bytes to 25MB) make up the Install pattern. The remaining two patterns – Programs and Windows – are practically the same as the namesake folders on your own hard disk. By the way, the average file size in the Windows pattern is somewhat smaller than that in the Programs pattern. We used two file systems: FAT32 and NTFS. At first, we formatted all 80GB drives into two logical partitions, 32GB each. The drives with smaller capacities were partitioned into two equal logical disks.
We deliberately grouped the drives according to their capacity (80, 60 and 40GB) in the diagrams below for better evaluation of their performance. It should be noted that it’s not quite correct to compare results shown by the drives of different “weights” as different usage of the disk space influences the numbers inevitably.
Hitachi 7K60 is the fastest at creating files. Hitachi 5K80 is the second fastest as it only lost to Hitachi DK23FB drives in the ISO pattern. By the way, the pair of DK23FB devices proved very stable across the patterns and shared the third and fourth places. Toshiba MK8025GAS was the best in Windows and Programs patterns (working with a lot of small files); as you remember, it was also good at processing small data blocks. Hitachi 40GN was again the last one.
The new Hitachi drives are superior at reading data. Next goes Seagate Momentus, closely followed by the pair of DK23FB drives from Hitachi. Hitachi 40GN is once again the slowest.
When copying file sets within one single partition, the drives rank up in a similar way: Hitachi 7K60, 5K80 and Seagate Momentus. However, they are now much faster than the rest of the drives, save for the Windows pattern where Hitachi 80GN outperforms the Momentus. Hitachi 40GN doesn’t look so hopeless in this test, at least the DK23FB drives and Toshiba MK8025GAS were even worse.
Copying data from one partition to another is similar enough to the results of the previous test. The new drives from Hitachi are the leaders, followed by Seagate Momentus. Toshiba MK8025GAS is down, having outperformed Hitachi 40GN in the Windows pattern only.
The change of the file system to NTFS doesn’t change the leader. It is the same Hitachi 7K60. Hitachi 5K80 follows the leader, losing to Hitachi DK23FB-40 in the ISO pattern only. Seagate Momentus couldn’t aspire for the third place, having lost it to Hitachi DK23FB-40. Hitachi 40GN is the slowest of all.
That’s close to what we have just seen in FAT32. Hitachi 7K60, Hitachi 5K80 and Seagate Momentus form the leading trio. A couple of drives from Hitachi DK23FB family are closely following them. Hitachi 40GN is down at the bottom.
The leading trio remains the same in the copy near test. Hitachi 40GN is hopeless in Windows and Programs patterns (working with many small files), but looks quite competitive against Toshiba MK8025GAS in the three other patterns.
When copying data between two partitions, we have the same leaders: Hitachi 7K60 and 5K80 and Seagate Momentus. Hitachi 40GN and Toshiba MK8025GAS are slower than the other drives.
Our today’s testing session gave us some food for thought. With the help of Hitachi 7K60 hard disk drive we saw how big of a performance improvement a 2.5” HDD can obtain due to simple speeding up of their spindle to 7,200rpm. I have no doubts other manufacturers will regard this product as a checkpoint and come up with their own 7,200rpm HDD solutions.
Hitachi 7K60 was the best in every test and confirmed its superiority over other models in nearly every respect. So if you want to have a miniature drive with the maximum performance, you should seriously consider this one.
Another newcomer from Hitachi, the 5K80, announced along with the 7K60, looks good, too. Besides good speed characteristics, it offers the maximum capacity for today – 80GB (against 40GB by Seagate Momentus and 60GB by Hitachi 7K60).
According to the test results we saw today, Seagate Momentus is going to be the main opponent to Hitachi 5K80 – it is better across a number of applications.
These three devices went unrivalled through all the tests. That’s good as newer models must be better than older ones – this is the rule of progress.
However, two drives of the older generation (Hitachi DK23FB) were not that hopeless altogether; sometimes they even defeated the youngsters.
The spindle rotation speed of 4,200rpm greatly slowed down Hitachi models from Travelstar 80GN and 40GN families that Hitachi took over from IBM. The same is true for Toshiba MK8025GAS. Of course, they had not a single chance to fly high in the rankings. Hitachi 40GN found itself in the very end of the race more often, though. Well, it has the smallest buffer (2MB) plus low data density. Together with 4,200rpm spindle rotation speed, this resulted in the slowest read and write speeds and an overall poorer performance. Toshiba MK8025GAS was just a little better than that; it worked wonders at reading and writing small data blocks, but sometimes would lose to Hitachi 40GN.
I think we won’t have to wait for long until the manufacturers of 2.5” HDDs switch to models with 5,400 and 7,200rpm speeds and 80MB and higher storage capacities. There are all necessary prerequisites for that. Moreover, 2.5” drives need to improve their characteristics, since their application field is constantly growing.
We are glad to introduce to you the first 2.5” hard disk drive with 7,200rpm spindle rotation speed. This solution from Hitachi should indicate the beginning of a new stage in the HDD market. Besides setting a new standard for notebooks, low-profile 2.5” “mobile” drives with “desktop” speed are about to start their invasion into the SFF systems.