I Need a New HDD for My Laptop (WD vs. Seagate)

[dylricho]

Hello,

I am in need of a new internal hard drive for my ASUS X58L. My current setup is an internal Hitachi Travelstar 5K250 HTS542512K9SA00 and an external Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500418 ST3500418AS.

I have narrowed my choice down to five drives, but I'm not very experienced with hard drives and would like some input as to which would be the best option.

1. Western Digital Scorpio Black WD3200BPKT - 320 GB, 7200 rpm, 16 MB cache, £32.00
2. Western Digital Scorpio Black WD5000BPKT - 500 GB, 7200 rpm, 16 MB cache, £42.00
3. Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9320423AS - 320 GB, 7200 rpm, 16 MB cache, £32.00
4. Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500423AS (ST9500420AS?) - 500 GB, 7200 rpm, 16 MB cache, £42.00
5. Seagate Momentus Thin ST320LT007- 320 GB, 7200 rpm, 16 MB cache, £32.00

Basing your input on value/performance for money would be most appreciated, as I understand that both manufacturers are pretty decent.

Thank you!
Dylan.

 

[natr0n]

#2

 

[Jetster]

#2 prabably has the best warrenty

 

[Mathragh]

if you've got the funds, I'd go for a Seagate slim SSHD. They're slightly more expensive, but offer SSD like performance for most daily tasks. I've already bought two myself (two laptops), and it really makes a big difference for startup times of things like windows and your most used programs. Also other stuff with loads of small disks activity is more fluid, since it caches writes on the SSD part.

Edit: Pricelist, cheapest one is £51.98 on there

 

[newtekie1]

if you've got the funds, I'd go for a Seagate slim SSHD. They're slightly more expensive, but offer SSD like performance for most daily tasks. I've already bought two myself (two laptops), and it really makes a big difference for startup times of things like windows and your most used programs. Also other stuff with loads of small disks activity is more fluid, since it caches writes on the SSD part.

Edit: Pricelist, cheapest one is £51.98 on there

Was going to suggest the same thing.

 

[dylricho]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I've gone with the Western Digital Scorpio Black WD5000BPKT. It was only £35 brand new.

 

[DRDNA]

The Western Digital Scorpio Black WD5000BPKT - 500 GB, 7200 rpm, 16 MB cache, £42.00 is a very good choice as well.

 

[satindemon4u]

Good choice. It comes down to what you want. According to my post "Post your HDD Speeds" it seems people get a little faster rate through Seagate but WD does offer a better warranty. Either way though you really can't go wrong.

 

[dylricho]

if you've got the funds, I'd go for a Seagate slim SSHD. They're slightly more expensive, but offer SSD like performance for most daily tasks. I've already bought two myself (two laptops), and it really makes a big difference for startup times of things like windows and your most used programs. Also other stuff with loads of small disks activity is more fluid, since it caches writes on the SSD part.

Edit: Pricelist, cheapest one is £51.98 on there

After reading up on the 4 GB NAND memory featured in these drives, I don't think this would be a good choice for me as I understand that it uses the memory to best figure out your most used applications and files in order to allow the user to gain access to them at a quicker rate. [source]

Unfortunately, in my situation, this wouldn't benefit me as I'm never doing one specific thing with my computer. I've also heard that the WD Black hard drives actually have lower latency when working with small files. [source]

Good choice. It comes down to what you want. According to my post "Post your HDD Speeds" it seems people get a little faster rate through Seagate but WD does offer a better warranty. Either way though you really can't go wrong.

I'm simply after a replacement hard drive for my current 5-year-old 120 GB snail-pace, almost-full-up Hitachi drive. I've upgraded the processor, RAM and battery for the laptop already and I don't want the hard drive to hinder my productivity. It needs a high capacity (500 GB will suffice) with a 7200 rpm rotation speed.

What I need it for, is mainly productivity tasks - web development, Photoshop, Illustrator, web browsing/internet, MS Office and occasional gaming (GTA San Andreas and Minecraft, nothing recent).

I notice that StorageReview only has an article for the BEKT, and not the BPKT. According to WD, the BPKT version features Advanced Format. What exactly is this and will it affect anything?

-----

For those wondering about the upgrades, I've listed the upgrade history below:

Original Machine

• Intel Celeron M 575 @ 2.00 GHz, 1 MB cache, 667 MHz FSB, 31 W TDP
• 1 GB DDR2-800/PC2-6400 RAM @ 667 MHz (GL960/GM965 limitation downclocks to 667 MHz)
• Hitachi Travelstar 5K250 HTS542512K9SA00 - internal, 120 GB, 5400 rpm
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500418 ST3500418AS - external, 500 GB, 7200 rpm
• Intel GMA X3100 - 384 MB, DirectX 11.0, Unified Shader Model 4.0
• 4400 mAh/46 Wh battery

Upgrade #1

• Intel Core 2 Duo T5900 @ 2.20 GHz, 2 MB cache, 800 MHz FSB, 35 W TDP
• 3 GB DDR2-800/PC2-6400 RAM @ 667 MHz (GL960/GM965 limitation downclocks to 667 MHz)

Upgrade #2

• Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 @ 2.50 GHz, 6 MB cache, 800 MHz FSB, 35 W TDP
• Western Digital Scorpio Black WD5000BPKT - internal, 500 GB, 7200 rpm
• 5200 mAh/58 Wh battery

-----

I am hoping this processor and hard drive upgrade will help in terms of performance for both Photoshop and Minecraft (I hear that both are more intensive on the CPU than GPU, which is good news for me because of the non-upgradable crappy on-board graphics).

These upgrades are to hopefully allow the computer to last a couple more years, and then my next upgrade will be a new computer.

Again, many thanks to all of you!

 

[pigulici]

I have a laptop and work on Photoshop too, I just replaced the hdd with a 512gb Samsung 830 ssd, and I put the hdd form laptop(1tb) with a caddy in the place of optical bay, so I have speed and storage in same place...

 

[dylricho]

It's in. Everything is much snappier. Geekbench is now double that of the original.

 

[Melvis]

WD Black hands down! They are fast, quiet, and have 5 yrs warranty. Its all about the warranty my friend.

 

[dylricho]

What's amusing is that I now hold the record for the highest Geekbench score for my laptop.