Seagate 120GB Momentus 5400.2 PATA Notebook Hard Disk Pictorial Review Posted! - Page 3

zy · 9th Aug 2005, 04:46 AM

i heard of sata notebook hard disk advertised in some laptops but never seen one before in real life or picture..

zy · 9th Aug 2005, 05:06 AM

last december when i bought my external drive based on notebook hard disk ..

my dad asked for a 7200rpm .. i was LMAO .. rotfl .. cuase he doesnt know much bout desktop hard disk and notebook hard disk

anyway .. my previous drive test .. long time ago

my results on the Samsung MP0402H on USB2.0

Avg Read Speed : 24.7MB/s

Burst Speed : 30.0MB/s .. limited by USB2.0 ?

Random Access : 17.4ms
CPU Utilization : 9% <-- USB 2.0 .. of cause it will be high

peaz · 9th Aug 2005, 10:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SAMSAMHA

very nice to see notebook hd is getting larger. it's unfortunately they don't get faster.

Btw, are there any sata notebook hd?

There are SATA hard disks for ntoebooks, although it's not easy if not impossible to get in the retail market. The new sonoma platform notebooks supports SATA but some manufacturer still chooses to use PATA hdds due to cost and availability.

Adrian Wong · 9th Aug 2005, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SAMSAMHA

very nice to see notebook hd is getting larger. it's unfortunately they don't get faster.

Btw, are there any sata notebook hd?

They ARE getting faster!

It's not just a matter of getting the spindle speed up. They can improve its speed by adding a large buffer and increasing the areal density.

As you can see, the Momentus 5400.2 is almost 50% faster at sustained reads than the Fujitsu MHT2040AT even though 5400 RPM is just 28.5% faster than 4200 RPM.

In addition, just look at the burst speed. Simply amazing.

Adrian Wong · 9th Aug 2005, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peaz

There are SATA hard disks for ntoebooks, although it's not easy if not impossible to get in the retail market. The new sonoma platform notebooks supports SATA but some manufacturer still chooses to use PATA hdds due to cost and availability.

Actually SATA hard disks also use more power than PATA hard disks.

For example, the SATA version of the 120GB Momentus 5400.2 uses something like 1.9W when reading and 2.3W when writing, compared to the PATA version we reviewed which uses 1.8W for reading and writing.

The SATA version also uses more power to start-up, seek and even during stand-by.

SAMSAMHA · 9th Aug 2005, 02:14 PM

I agree Adrian the new technologies, and cache etc do help out the performance. The newer 16mb cache hd do help quite a lot compare to the 8mb. When are you going to review the new WD 16mb sata2 hd?(maybe giving them away too

).

is that the general case that sata uses more power than pata? Could it be that the increase in the power due to the faster rotational speed?

peaz · 9th Aug 2005, 02:15 PM

Hmm ic. But then again, this could be becuase SATA is relatively still new and has yet to mature... give it a few more years and I'm sure the electronics of a SATA drive will be much more efficient

Adrian Wong · 9th Aug 2005, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SAMSAMHA

I agree Adrian the new technologies, and cache etc do help out the performance. The newer 16mb cache hd do help quite a lot compare to the 8mb. When are you going to review the new WD 16mb sata2 hd?(maybe giving them away too

).

is that the general case that sata uses more power than pata? Could it be that the increase in the power due to the faster rotational speed?

Hmm.. Well, I don't think 16MB of buffer will really improve the burst rate that much more than 8MB. But yeah, there should be some improvement in performance.

Western Digital? LOL! The trouble is we have no contact with WD just yet. Maybe I will contact them and see if they can send us some samples.

Faster rotational speed? Nah, in my post above, I was comparing the SATA and PATA versions of the SAME hard disk - the Momentus 5400.2.

Adrian Wong · 9th Aug 2005, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peaz

Hmm ic. But then again, this could be becuase SATA is relatively still new and has yet to mature... give it a few more years and I'm sure the electronics of a SATA drive will be much more efficient

Yeah, it's probably due to the new ICs and PCBs. Once they fine-tune it, the power consumption should drop.

But right now, SATA hard disks appear to use more power than PATA drives.

SAMSAMHA · 9th Aug 2005, 11:23 PM

well, my maxtor 16mb cached HD do feel faster than my seagate's 8mb cached drive. Granted they are not the same drive/brand/model, etc, but I feel that my 16mb loads faster (even compare to the 8mb pata).

I think right now, hd's performance is really reaching a bottleneck, they either have to create new technology, such as those HD included ram in it (are you going to review that Adrian), or find a new technology. it seems like increase rotational speed and cache is what they can do now but they don't really help out that much in performance and fill the promised bandwidth.

Still for notebook hd, we need good performance as well as low power consumpiton to prolong the life of the battery.

9th Aug 2005, 04:46 AM	#21 (permalink)
zy zynine.com Join Date: 16 Dec 2002 Location: Buffalo NY Posts: 13,489 Reputation: 2276 Rep Power: 43	i heard of sata notebook hard disk advertised in some laptops but never seen one before in real life or picture.. __________________

9th Aug 2005, 05:06 AM	#22 (permalink)
zy zynine.com Join Date: 16 Dec 2002 Location: Buffalo NY Posts: 13,489 Reputation: 2276 Rep Power: 43	last december when i bought my external drive based on notebook hard disk .. my dad asked for a 7200rpm .. i was LMAO .. rotfl .. cuase he doesnt know much bout desktop hard disk and notebook hard disk anyway .. my previous drive test .. long time ago my results on the Samsung MP0402H on USB2.0 Avg Read Speed : 24.7MB/s Burst Speed : 30.0MB/s .. limited by USB2.0 ? Random Access : 17.4ms CPU Utilization : 9% <-- USB 2.0 .. of cause it will be high __________________

9th Aug 2005, 02:14 PM	#26 (permalink)
SAMSAMHA Super Active Join Date: 13 Oct 2004 Posts: 2,356 Reputation: 197 Rep Power: 9	I agree Adrian the new technologies, and cache etc do help out the performance. The newer 16mb cache hd do help quite a lot compare to the 8mb. When are you going to review the new WD 16mb sata2 hd?(maybe giving them away too). is that the general case that sata uses more power than pata? Could it be that the increase in the power due to the faster rotational speed?

9th Aug 2005, 02:15 PM	#27 (permalink)
peaz ARP Webmaster Join Date: 13 Oct 2002 Location: http://atpeaz.com/ Posts: 8,595 Reputation: 1673 Rep Power: 32	Hmm ic. But then again, this could be becuase SATA is relatively still new and has yet to mature... give it a few more years and I'm sure the electronics of a SATA drive will be much more efficient __________________ Ken Ng Tech ARP Follow me at Twitter Blogs @ http://www.atpeaz.com/

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9th Aug 2005, 11:23 PM	#30 (permalink)
SAMSAMHA Super Active Join Date: 13 Oct 2004 Posts: 2,356 Reputation: 197 Rep Power: 9	well, my maxtor 16mb cached HD do feel faster than my seagate's 8mb cached drive. Granted they are not the same drive/brand/model, etc, but I feel that my 16mb loads faster (even compare to the 8mb pata). I think right now, hd's performance is really reaching a bottleneck, they either have to create new technology, such as those HD included ram in it (are you going to review that Adrian), or find a new technology. it seems like increase rotational speed and cache is what they can do now but they don't really help out that much in performance and fill the promised bandwidth. Still for notebook hd, we need good performance as well as low power consumpiton to prolong the life of the battery.