7200rpm Laptop Drive

[mikeblas]

The drive on my laptop is slowly developing bad sectors. It's a Seagate ST94011A (http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/ata/st94011a.html).

I want to replace it with a 7200rpm drive. Can anyone recommend one? I'm looking for a sixty gigabyte unit.

The Hitachi Travelstar E7K60 (http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/e7k60/e7k60.htm) looks nice. I can't figure out the difference between it and the IBM Hitachi Travelstar 7K60 (http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/7k60/7k60.htm). Even looking at the data sheets, the drives appear identical. What's the deal?

[TheDoucheMan]

If you look at the model numbers, they should be the same drive. I dunno why hitachi would continue making drives with IBM on them but as you said, the specs are the same, and the model numbers are the same.

Be aware that if you are upgrading to a 7200 rpm drive in your laptop, you will probably take a hit in battery life.

[mikeblas]

The model numbers are different. HTE726060M9AT00 for the E7K60 and HTS726060M9AT00 for the 7K60. The SKUs are different, too.

I'm prepared for the battery life hit; I don't think it will be that big. The Seagate draws 1.2W idle and 2.4W active compared to 2.0W idle and 2.5W active for these Hitachi models.

[TheDoucheMan]

And i thought i read them carefully,... I stand corrected.

Perhaps the IBM model is old stock?

[mikeblas]

And i thought i read them carefully,... I stand corrected.

Perhaps the IBM model is old stock?

Well, I wouldn't go thinking missing one single letter in a whole bowl of alphabet soup means you have a perception problem!

Maybe about the old stock ... But that would seem strange since this line seems new, and it was more than a year ago that IBM sold its storage division to Hitachi, right?

[DougLite]

The HGST joint venture took effect January 1 2003 - over two years now. I'd pick up the Hitachi SKU, it's an awesome drive and the fastest thing going, to my knowledge, in the mobile market. An extra .8 watt idle and .1 load won't be a huge battery life hit, but will be noticeable I'd expect.

[mpatc]

There is a significant difference between these drives when it comes to battery life. Both drives are of the same generation but the E7K60 lacks the advanced power management features of the 7K60.

If you dig into the datasheets on Hitachi’s site you will see that the E7K60 is ‘designed for continuous operation to support 24x7 operations’. I have always been told that the E7K60 was designed for things like ATM’s and small point of sale terminals.

I have the 7K60 in my Dell C840 and noticed an increase in system responsiveness compared to the 5400 rpm Hitachi I had in it before but have not noticed any decrease in battery life. I believe that both drives have the same MTF and the same warranty but differ in their power consumption characteristics.

[BillLeeLee]

I use the Hitachi 7200 RPM drive as well, it's zippy compared to the 4200/5400 RPM drives I've used in the past, and I have not noticed any real degradation in battery life, still pulling over 4 hours on my battery on full charge.

[darktiger]

Get one with 16meg cache.

[mikeblas]

Looks like the 60 gig versions of the Hitachi drive are very hard to come by. ZZF and AxionTech are both backordred, though the AxionTech website let me place an order. One of their employees sent me an email saying the drive is "on shortage right now".

I found another joint that sells it ... for 65% more than AxionTech does.

Here's hoping I can get a drive before the one I have now gives up the ghost!

[mikeblas]

W00t!!1!

http://www.blaszczak.com/drivebench.jpg

[DougLite]

One concern is the seek time figure - It's 4ms higher. I realize that it's a synthetic measure, but that big of a hit does not bode well for real world performance. Is there some sort of acoustics/power management logic on the drive htat has been enabled to prolong battery life at the expense of seek time?

Other than that, it looks to be an awesome drive, rock on!

[serbiaNem]

I have the E7K60 in my system right now. It basically never goes to sleep but runs cooler than the regular 7K60 for anyone who's interested.

[mikeblas]

Yeah, I noticed that, too. That run has some droops and spikes, and I think I did it immediately after the system booted ... so it's likely something else was touching the disk while the test was run.

Below are results from a quiet machine, whihere the random access time is shown as 0.9ms slower than the Seagate drive. Even that's a bit disappointing as my memory of the spec sheets was giving the me the expectation of about 2.0ms improvement.

The machine is not a speed monster, but it's certainly crisper, now.

http://www.blaszczak.com/drivebench2.jpg