12-05-2007, 08:02 AM

After doing a lot of reading, I'm kind of set on this Hitachi 200GB, 7200RPM drive. The latency (4.2ms), cache (16MB), and seek time (10ms) are all above average, as is the price.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Hitachi/0A50940/

But, they also make a 250GB, 5400RPM drive. The latency (5.5ms), cache (8MB), and seek time (11ms) aren't as good as the 7200RPM, but it uses less power across the board and it's cheaper.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Hitachi/0A53329/

I'm not sure how much performance difference and difference in battery life i'd see from the different specs. Are there any other drives that are superior that I should be looking into? Does anyone make a 250GB or larger 7200RPM drive?

-Nick

12-05-2007, 08:58 AM

Professional opinion: Avoid Hitachi hard drives like the plague they are. At work we refer to them as "Deathstars" (a play on the model name "Deskstar" and "Travelstar").

From what I can tell, no one currently makes a 250GB drive at 7200rpm yet. If you must have that kind of capacity, go with a Western Digital. If not, stick with Seagate as they have a 5 year warranty.

12-05-2007, 09:26 AM

Originally Posted by cwa107

Professional opinion: Avoid Hitachi hard drives like the plague they are. At work we refer to them as "Deathstars" (a play on the model name "Deskstar" and "Travelstar").

From what I can tell, no one currently makes a 250GB drive at 7200rpm yet. If you must have that kind of capacity, go with a Western Digital. If not, stick with Seagate as they have a 5 year warranty.

Thanks for the reply. Interesting you say that, it's the first negative comment i've heard about the Hitachi drives. I had read some complaints about both WD and Seagate units. I was looking into those as well, but I don't believe WD or Seagate make any 7200RPM 2.5" drives that are larger than the 120GB I have in the machine now.

I'm looking for large capacity and 7200RPM, as i'm going to start doing some video editing. I'd like to have enough space to partition my internal and use it as a scratch disk. Everything will be backed up on a 200GB external that I have. My RAM is maxed out, and the machine is only a 2.0GHz C2D, so I was hoping to squeeze the last bit of performance out of it by going with a 7200.

The 200GB Hitachi looked ideal, as i've read nothing but positive remarks about it, and there isn't another 200GB drive that performs as well. As a side note, that drive is loaded in some mislabelled external drives, and i'm able to pick one up for $160...drive with enclosure, but the warranty on externals is 1 year, vs the 3 year "internal" (same drive).

Bad experiences with all Hitachi HD's, or this line in particular?

-Nick

12-05-2007, 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by fiveightandten

Thanks for the reply. Interesting you say that, it's the first negative comment i've heard about the Hitachi drives. I had read some complaints about both WD and Seagate units. I was looking into those as well, but I don't believe WD or Seagate make any 7200RPM 2.5" drives that are larger than the 120GB I have in the machine now.

I'm looking for large capacity and 7200RPM, as i'm going to start doing some video editing. I'd like to have enough space to partition my internal and use it as a scratch disk. Everything will be backed up on a 200GB external that I have. My RAM is maxed out, and the machine is only a 2.0GHz C2D, so I was hoping to squeeze the last bit of performance out of it by going with a 7200.

The 200GB Hitachi looked ideal, as i've read nothing but positive remarks about it, and there isn't another 200GB drive that performs as well. As a side note, that drive is loaded in some mislabelled external drives, and i'm able to pick one up for $160...drive with enclosure, but the warranty on externals is 1 year, vs the 3 year "internal" (same drive).

Bad experiences with all Hitachi HD's, or this line in particular?

-Nick

I work as a network administrator for a large company. As you might imagine, we see a lot of failed drives. In terms of notebook hard drives, the Hitachis are the worst. As soon as we yank the drive and see that now familiar "Travelstar" logo, we know the drive is trash. They tend to fail spectacularly, usually not even recognizable on the bus. I have a feeling that's why Apple doesn't use their drives - in fact, Dell seems to have gotten away from them as of late too - every single replacement drive they ship me is either Toshiba, Fujitsu or Seagate.

Seagate is the only manufacturer in the business that does a 5 year warranty. I think that speaks volumes about their confidence in their product, particularly when the rest of the industry is doing 1 year warranties. I've been buying their drives since they stretched out their warranty term and have yet to have one fail - both at home and at work.

Seagate makes 7200 notebook drives up to 200GB:

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/pro...mentus_7200.2/

12-05-2007, 09:47 AM

Originally Posted by cwa107

I work as a network administrator for a large company. As you might imagine, we see a lot of failed drives. In terms of notebook hard drives, the Hitachis are the worst. As soon as we yank the drive and see that now familiar "Travelstar" logo, we know the drive is trash. They tend to fail spectacularly, usually not even recognizable on the bus. I have a feeling that's why Apple doesn't use their drives - in fact, Dell seems to have gotten away from them as of late too - every single replacement drive they ship me is either Toshiba, Fujitsu or Seagate.

Seagate is the only manufacturer in the business that does a 5 year warranty. I think that speaks volumes about their confidence in their product, particularly when the rest of the industry is doing 1 year warranties. I've been buying their drives since they stretched out their warranty term and have yet to have one fail - both at home and at work.

Seagate makes 7200 notebook drives up to 200GB:

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/pro...mentus_7200.2/

Hmmm. I see that they also make a 200GB, 7200RPM with 16MB cache (there's an 8mb as well). That's exactly what i'm looking for, but I can't seem to find it for sale anywhere. I'll have to do some searching online. Thanks for the info!

-Nick

12-05-2007, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by fiveightandten

I'm not sure how much performance difference and difference in battery life i'd see from the different specs.

Just FYI, a 7200 RPM drive would definitely suck a lot more battery power than a 5400 drive. Something to consider if you need good battery life.