Four 2.5" Hard Drives From 500 GB To 1 TB, Benchmarked

[Guest]

Thanks to advances in manufacturing and 4 KB sectors, we finally have 2.5" hard drives with 500 GB per platter and a notebook-friendly 9.5 mm Z-height. Thanks to their high data density, even power-friendly 5400 RPM drives offer impressive transfer rates.

Four 2.5" Hard Drives From 500 GB To 1 TB, Benchmarked : Read more

 

[Guest]

this gives me some confidence in my WD scorpio blue, thill thinking about going with an ssd though

 

[freggo]

"9.5 mm Z-height."

Isn't that like saying 9.5 mm "vertical height".
There is no X-height or Y-height

 

[bennaye]

depends on your initial orientation of your axes

 

[theconsolegamer]

Western Digital and Seagate deceiving Hitachi and Samsung consumers since [insert acquisition date here]

 

[techcurious]

[citation][nom]theconsolegamer[/nom]Western Digital and Seagate deceiving Hitachi and Samsung consumers since [insert acquisition date here][/citation]
The Hitachi and Samsung drives are still manufactured in the same factories they were before.. just cause ownership changes doesn't mean performance or features and characteristics of the drives are going to change right away.. that will take time to happen, and who is to say if they will change for the better or worse..

 

[freggo]

[citation][nom]bennaye[/nom]depends on your initial orientation of your axes[/citation]

Z-axis is height in any system I am aware of.

 

[Guest]

Two hitachi drives have failed for me in the past year, i've got one Samsung drive that's been running for over two years(no issues) and a scorpio black that's much better. I don't know if it's just me but I don't really trust Hitachi HDD's anymore

 

[ovymoont]

Some of these drives are sold not only as low power but also as low noise options so I think a noise benchmark would have also been useful.

I actually have a Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD10JVPT as the data storage drive in my desktop PC (I use a 64GB SSD as my boot drive) and the reason I went for it is exactly this, i.e. low noise, and I can say that it does deliver on that. It is clearly slower than my old 1TB 3.5" Samsung HDD at 7200RPM with 32MB of cache but I must say that it is noticeably quieter. And the noise difference comes in two flavors, on the one hand the actual noise generated by the drive motor which is clearly noticeable on a 3.5" 7200RPM drive but much less so on a 2.5" 5400RPM, and on the other hand in terms of the drive vibrations which are then passed onto the case to create a very disturbing humming noise even through the rubber vibration insulators I had installed on my old 3.5".

 

[f-14]

[citation][nom]techcurious[/nom]The Hitachi and Samsung drives are still manufactured in the same factories they were before.. just cause ownership changes doesn't mean performance or features and characteristics of the drives are going to change right away.. that will take time to happen, and who is to say if they will change for the better or worse..[/citation]

you sir have no experience in the real world or in business i see. try being a business analyst. first thing to change is the staff like within 6 weeks and still goes on for 6 months to 2 years, then the thinking which is also why alot of staff who can't cope or disagree are gone. while doing all the contracts for everything are evaluated and everything that can be cut to help pay for the acquisition is gutted as much as is still profitable, that means whole segments can and typically are sold off if the buyer has a cheaper solution already implemented in such types of acquisition deals. supply contracts are bought out or cancelled if they don't meet profitability requirements ASAP.

so what you said isn't true because what happens in reality is not only does the staff change almost immediately if they are not superior in EVERY WAY (cost most importantly) parts and materials are changed very quickly if they are not superior in EVERY WAY (cost most importantly) any segment that can be cut to improve profitability is cut.

typically 30-66% of a bought out company gets cut as it is duplicate of what the buying company already has and can supply and or make already. i have seen as much as 90% get cut and as little as 10% cut.

when dealing with american companies, labor force seems to be the most change made due to costs. i have seen labor forces that were 300-500% more cost effective for the work they get done cut due to labor costs as it meant less billable hours and profitability in squeezing a client for. those are some of the saddest things i have seen happen after an evaluation. i have also seen the same thing happen to products that were superior gutted down just so some one else can say they made the best on the market with out ever having to improve their product, change their ways or spend more money countless times.

the aim of buying out another company in the same business in a bad economy is to eliminate competition and or buy them for their IP/patents, not to spend more money in a bad economy, i don't think that can be stressed enough companies are just fighting to stay in business in a bad economy.

 

[ovymoont]

I am afraid I do not agree with your view. In the current economy many mergers and acquisitions are made in order to consolidate a business and to increase the market share. If say you have 20% of the market and the company you are buying has 10% of the market you don't close down it's manufacturing capacities just to get rid of competition. If you do that you run the risk of not being able to deliver the capacity that you are supposed to deliver to your clients because you can't possibly increase the production in your own facilities to make up for the 10% you close down. Also, most companies these days are listed on the stock market and the fundamental aspect of such a company is that year on year it has to deliver growth to its shareholders. In a bad economy it is difficult to achieve organic growth and many businesses resort to mergers and acquisitions to deliver that growth although quite often that is more on paper that in actual fact. Also, in the case of companies in the HDD business the bulk of the production facilities are already base in low income economies such as China, Thailand, etc. and as such it is simply not possible to reduce the production costs even further through a reduction in the cost of labor.

The one situation when you would buy off a competitor just to close it down is when there is an excess production capacity on the market which is driving down prices. In that situation you would try to reduce the level of supply so that you can get an increase in prices. However, in the HDD business that's not the case as production levels have only just recovered to the levels they were at before the floods in Thailand which took out a number of large HDD facilities and created major shortages on the market. This means there is hardly an excess in production capacity so it does not make business sense to close down facilities that have just been restarted. Plus, these acquisitions have been made for a cost which is not negligible and it is unlikely that cost can be offset by an increase in prices generated by a shortage in supply.

Anyway, there's a lot more I can explain in terms of business policies and so on but I just don't have the time so in short I agree with techcurious in saying that right now the facilities that have been taken over are still producing drives and will still do for a while. That is not to say that will still be the case in few years time but that is definitely the case at the moment.

 

[ovymoont]

And to add to my previous post, in the real world of business, marketing tricks like saying 'oh, we make the best product on the market' don't work because a business will not base its product acquisition policy on TV ads. And if a big client requires the best product on the market and is used to getting it, you will not be able to just stop making it and try selling them an inferior product - it just doesn't work like that on the corporate market - they will just go to the competition and will make sure they never come back to you. So are you willing to loose that business? Probably not... Remember that you're not selling your products to the average Joe who is just sitting in front of the TV watching the football and who is likely to not have a clue and will just believe your marketing claims based on how shiny your adds are (see Apple). In the corporate market the people who are buying your products are professional experts who they know exactly what they want and what your product can deliver so they won't just buy your marketing bull, they'll base your decision on facts.

 

[sherlockwing]

[citation][nom]techcurious[/nom]The Hitachi and Samsung drives are still manufactured in the same factories they were before.. just cause ownership changes doesn't mean performance or features and characteristics of the drives are going to change right away.. that will take time to happen, and who is to say if they will change for the better or worse..[/citation]

Actually no, Samsung Eco Green F2 for example went from a very reliable product to a fairly bad product since the acquistion. Its newegg 1 egg review% is 10% overall(1541 reviews), however during the last 6 month this % have spiked to 22%(182 reviews), having read through most of those are from user who bought their drive since the acquisition.

 

[luciferano]

[citation][nom]sherlockwing[/nom]Actually no, Samsung Eco Green F2 for example went from a very reliable product to a fairly bad product since the acquistion. Its newegg 1 egg review% is 10% overall(1541 reviews), however during the last 6 month this % have spiked to 22%(182 reviews), having read through most of those are from user who bought their drive since the acquisition.[/citation]

Agreed. The new Samsung hard drive are all re-branded Seagate units IIRC. They might be built in the same factories, but things are not the same as when it was Samsung doing quality control.

 

[shloader]

f-14. You're not getting down-voted because you sound uninformed. Much of what you say can be completely true of Seagate gobbling Samsung, though I don't think it's exactly the same with WD and HGST. You're getting down-voted likely do to your first line. Such dickish nature threw your post right into the TL;DR bucket.

 

[mapesdhs]

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.

 

[mapesdhs]

PS. Sorry for any typos, suffering from a cough/cold atm. :}

 

[drkjedi]

[citation][nom]athulajp[/nom]Two hitachi drives have failed for me in the past year, i've got one Samsung drive that's been running for over two years(no issues) and a scorpio black that's much better. I don't know if it's just me but I don't really trust Hitachi HDD's anymore[/citation]


same thing here. 2 drives failed since dec. 2011. and they don't ship replacement drives before getting the dead drives back like others' do.

 

[danwat1234]

Sigh, still no 1TB 7200RPM laptop drives. The 750GB Scorpio Black has been out since February 2011! Over 1.5 years and not a 1/3 increase in capacity.

 

[Christopher1]

Bah..... I'm not really interested in hard disk drives anymore. I'm more interested in SSD drives for OS storage (128GB's is enough) and a external hard drive or regular hard drive for other things.

 

[mapesdhs]

For those with mbds that just have SATA2, the OCZ 120GB Vertex2E is a nice option; only 52 UKP from Amazon. They also
have the SATA3 120GB MAX IOPS Vertex3 for 80.

Ian.

 

[latosha poindexter]

TV watching the football and who is likely to not have a clue and will just believe your marketing claims based on how shiny your adds are (see Apple). In the corporate market the people who are buying your products are professional experts who they know exactly what they want and what your product can deliver so they won't just buy your marketing bull, they'll base your decision on facts.

 

[johnxd]

Normally I prefer WD, but since all their 2,5" drives have to be formatted in a special way (advanced format), I think I would prefer this 1KTB from Hitachi.

That is if anyone would be so kind to explain me how this special advanced format drives are working when I have to clone an actual internal (not advanced format) drive from my notebook to an other external WD advanced format. Can it be simply but back into the notebook without any fuzz ?

I'd really appreciate if someone could explain to me in a not too technical way how to proceed.

Otherwise I think I just might prefer Hitachi this time with a drive that doesn't need to be specially formatted.

 

[johnxd]

Just checked and I see that the Hitachi also needs this advanced format. Now I'm really confused.

 

[kenkay]

Funny. I discovered this article while trying to research why there's been almost no significant increase in size for laptop hard drives -- and when I read this article and how they're "making leaps and bounds" in size, well, that left me completely dumbstruck, as it couldn't be further from reality, IMHO. It's been TWO YEARS since I upgraded my laptop to a 750Gb/7200rpm drive... and since then, the only larger capacity HD was a 1Tb/5200rpm drive that was released quite awhile back. Other World Computing just recently (2013) listed a 1.5Tb 5200rpm drive, but until I read about some positive test results, and that more than one manufacturer is making one, I'm holding off even though I desperately need a HD upgrade.

But good grief, leaps and bounds? There's been loads of 500Gb drives available for FIVE years now, and like I mentioned, it's been TWO years since I bought my 750Gb drive, with nothing new since (other than the one I found on OWC, that's 1.5Tb). So I ask, where's all this progress? It plainly does NOT exist, period.

In the 25-odd years I've had PC's, I've never seen a more sluggish market when it comes to hard drive capacity, especially these past five years. In 2007 I bought a 2.5mm 500Gb/5200 drive, and a couple more since '07, so all I have to say is where's all the bigger HD's if so much progress is being made by leaps and bounds? Maybe this is some kind of market ploy to force people to buy SSD's, while a person needs a 2nd mortgage to buy one that's of any decent size.

I've been feeling totally stumped about how nearly NO significant size increases have taken place in two years time, and now I'm really stumped having read this article that seems to have been authored by Rip Van Winkle...