Conclusion
Although we found ups and downs for each of the four products, all the drives passed the basic requirements for high-performance notebook hard drives, with great benchmark results. However, you should not just go any purchase any of the four drives, as their characteristics mean that some are more suitable for specific applications.
#4 Samsung’s Spinpoint MP2 is a good performer, delivering great throughput of up to 86 MB/s, and dominating the PCMark05 application benchmark, which is pretty relevant. Yet the drive is not a suitable overall recommendation, as its access time and I/O performance are a bit weak, and it’s as power-hungry as first-generation 7,200 RPM drives by Hitachi and Seagate. In terms of efficiency, Samsung is simply not yet where it could be.
#3 The Hitachi Travelstar 7K320 offers balanced performance and delivers good results across all benchmarks, but it does not win a single one of them except the Windows XP startup benchmark of PCMark05. If you want maximum performance or efficiency you might want to look for another drive, but if you find this model installed in your new notebook there is no reason to worry—it’s a good product.
#2 Western Digital’s new Scorpio Black has arrived with a bang. It has the fastest access time and great I/O performance, beating all the other 2.5” hard drives. Though its throughput cannot quite match the transfer rates of the Seagate drive, WD manages to get excellent results in all of the benchmarks. And despite good but not exciting power consumption results, we found some surprises: WD implemented a sensible power management solution, which has the drive consume the least power at low-power idle and when playing DVD video off the HDD.
#1 Seagate Momentus 7200.3. We were looking at the four hard drives from a mobile user’s perspective, so we paid close attention to performance per watt ratings. Not only does Seagate hit new transfer rate records, but it also beats the competition by providing the best combination of low power consumption and high performance. It might not win all the benchmarks, but overall it is on top. Its lead over WD was very small, though.
There is an apparent error on page 16. You state, "The WD Scorpio Black and Seagate’s Momentus 7200.3 do very well here.... they both require less than 0.8 W idle power." However, the bar to which you refer on the last chart entitled, "Lowest Drive Idle Power Requirement: Windows Vista without Drive Power Savings," is labeled as "Western Digital Scorpio WD2500BEVS, 250GB, 5400RPM, SATA 150." The bar which is labeled "Western Digital Scorpio WD3200BEKT, 320GB, 7200RPM, SATA 300," shows an idle power of 0.97 W. Either the bars are mislabeled or you accidentally looked at the wrong data for the WD Scorpio Black when writing your paragraph summary. I would like to know which is correct. Otherwise, this was a great article.
Can we get the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB drive compared as well? I was just about to purchase a new drive when I saw that fella. Would be great to know how it shapes up compared to the 7200.3 and the Scorpio Black.