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Very good article, covered everything with detail and seemed to anticipate any questions one would have on these drives.
One very small criticism is the way the drives are referred to. Momentus 7200.1 is a family, and constantly referring to a single member of that family is improper, and it should have been referred to as its real name. Not all Momentus 7200.1 will perform identically, and they are not all the same drive, so it would have been better to refer to the specific model of a drive with the specific name of the drive, rather than the family and sometimes the name in parenthesis. Again, that is minor.
An excellent, excellent article.
One sidenote, while 7200s are very trendy, and maybe on mobile drives make more sense, on desktop machines I generally prefer 5400s (which are very, very hard to find now) except in very specific instances. They generate a LOT less heat, and if you have sufficient memory so you have no swapping, the performance difference becomes minor in many situations. Unfortunately, as I alluded to, these hard disks are very difficult to find now, and when they are available the capacities are generally not very good. Samsung makes one with 120 Gb (SV1204H), or actually, made one, which I use a lot, but it is a drive consistent with Samsung quality, i.e. low. Seagate made one with 40 Gb, but now only make one with 20 Gb, so these 2.5s become more and more attractive for that type of use. While it goes beyond the span of this article, it might be interesting to do an article on these drives in desktop machines, measuring not only performance, but also heat/temperature in the case, fans needed, sound, etc... For example, I have a dual P III Slot 1 (OR840) mb that got too hot with 7200s and needed fans. Throwing in the crappy SV1204H lowered the temperature a lot, and required one less fan and still had a lower temperature.
I was looking at the external USB enclosures too, to get the drive out of the case and remove the heat problem that way. I read the article on the enclosure, but by contrast with this article, that one told me absolutely nothing useful and answered no questions I had.
Again, this was a very well written, thorough, and useful article. Good job.
One very small criticism is the way the drives are referred to. Momentus 7200.1 is a family, and constantly referring to a single member of that family is improper, and it should have been referred to as its real name. Not all Momentus 7200.1 will perform identically, and they are not all the same drive, so it would have been better to refer to the specific model of a drive with the specific name of the drive, rather than the family and sometimes the name in parenthesis. Again, that is minor.
An excellent, excellent article.
One sidenote, while 7200s are very trendy, and maybe on mobile drives make more sense, on desktop machines I generally prefer 5400s (which are very, very hard to find now) except in very specific instances. They generate a LOT less heat, and if you have sufficient memory so you have no swapping, the performance difference becomes minor in many situations. Unfortunately, as I alluded to, these hard disks are very difficult to find now, and when they are available the capacities are generally not very good. Samsung makes one with 120 Gb (SV1204H), or actually, made one, which I use a lot, but it is a drive consistent with Samsung quality, i.e. low. Seagate made one with 40 Gb, but now only make one with 20 Gb, so these 2.5s become more and more attractive for that type of use. While it goes beyond the span of this article, it might be interesting to do an article on these drives in desktop machines, measuring not only performance, but also heat/temperature in the case, fans needed, sound, etc... For example, I have a dual P III Slot 1 (OR840) mb that got too hot with 7200s and needed fans. Throwing in the crappy SV1204H lowered the temperature a lot, and required one less fan and still had a lower temperature.
I was looking at the external USB enclosures too, to get the drive out of the case and remove the heat problem that way. I read the article on the enclosure, but by contrast with this article, that one told me absolutely nothing useful and answered no questions I had.
Again, this was a very well written, thorough, and useful article. Good job.
[Posted by: TA152H 
| Date: 12/08/05 05:31:06 AM]
| Date: 12/08/05 05:31:06 AM]
