I'm in the midst of deciding on several 2.5" drives to buy for backup
purposes (being fitted into a Startech 4-bay 2.5" SATA enclosure, to be
housed in an external case), so I spent some time trawling through
numerous sites for pricing, etc. My priority is minimum power
consumption, but not sacrificing too much speed in the process. Perhaps
my results might be useful to someone, so here thay are, ordered in terms
of least power consumption at maximum write throughput. See:
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/hdsummary.txt
There are separate tables for 1TB, 750GB and 500GB models. Any model not
mentioned in the article is not included.
I was shocked to discover just how many of these drives have been
discontinued or were never sold at all by many suppliers. Strange for a
review to mention so many drives which already one cannot buy (at least
not here), but anyway, pricing is included nonetheless (all in UKP;
relative differences and availability might be different in the US, etc.)
So, my conclusion based on this data for my own needs would be:
1TB: Hitachi 5K1000 5400rpm
750GB: Hitach Travelstar 5K750 5400rpm or 7K750 7200rp,
500GB: Samsung M8 HN-500MBB 5400rpm
If one's priority is performance then the conclusions would likely
be different. Anyway, hope this is useful to someone. Pricing correct
as of 06/Oct/2012.
Ian.