Advantages: Huge capacity, reasonably fast, 5 year warranty Disadvantages: Not the fastest
My laptop, a Dell 5150 is a fine machine (see review elsewhere on Ciao) but the 80Gb hard drive whilst big for a laptop is starting to get a bit cramped now I have both Windows XP and Vista on it so I've started looking around for a second hard drive so I can put Vista on one and leave XP on the other and then swap drives as needed. Luckily, following a previous hard drive failure, I have a spare caddy that the laptop needs so swapping drives would be a quick task, assuming I keep the tiny screwdriver needed handy in my rucksack!
Laptop hard drives are smaller than normal - 2.5inch as opposed to 3.5 inch and tend to be at a price premium compared to the 'normal' sized drives, especially the bigger ones. They also tend to be much slower as they run at 4200RPM instead of 5600 or even 7200RPM that desktop ones run at. The reason being ...
Advantages: Small, fast, large cache Disadvantages: Expensive
times. So overall it performs well. Seagate are a trusted manufacturer and have been around for a while. As far as I'm aware they have never made a bad device line, but then my HDD's of preference are normally Western digital.
The device uses an 8mb cache, this isn't a special as it used to be since many other 2.5"HDDs now use this amount but its still a plus point for the device. It runs a 7200RPM, this is about the same as many normal 3.5" HDDs but is quite fast for a laptop variant.
As I said before it is important to look at your need for this type of device, there are many other devices available that do the same job but for a far lower price. You should only buy 2.5" HDD's if you really need one and if you can't use anything else.
I bought this one new from Ebuyer for just over £100 inc VAT and delivery. Its now happily ...
Advantages: Small, quiet, reliable Disadvantages: Can't think of any really
I bought this particular harddrive recently to be used as backup for all my photos and music and other miscellaneous documents that I have managed to collect over the years.
Basically, mainly all external hard drives on the market today are just ordinary hard drives in an external caddy which provides power and allows you to connect it to your computer to read data. It's extremely easy to buy your own hard drive and caddy, connect them together yourself and away you go with your own customised external HDD.
A 2.5" hard drive is the size used for laptops so consequently it is smaller and more compact than a regular 3.5" drive for desktops. The SeagateST9320325AS is a SATA-300 drive which basically means it's quite fast although the regular consumer doesn't really notice the difference all that much between that and older style ...
Product Information for "Seagate Momentus 5400.3 ST980815A 80 GB" »
Performance
Drive Transfer Rate
100 MBps (external)
Internal Data Rate
44 MBps
Seek Time
11 ms (average)
Average Latency
5.56 ms
Spindle Speed
5400 rpm
Reliability
Non-Recoverable Errors
1 per 10^14
Manufacturer's product description
Momentus 5400.3 Series is the first Seagate product to utilize perpendicular recording technology. This innovative technology enables Seagate to deliver the industry's highest capacity in a single, 2.5-inch disc drive without sacrificing best-in-class features. PRODUCT FEATURES: Nearly 50 percent more performance than systems with 4200-RPM drives; 4200-like battery consumption lets users work longer; Robust design and high shock tolerance enable mobility in rugged notebook operating environments; 350 Gs of operating shock and 900 Gs of nonoperating shock make the drive ideal for notebook PCs and industrial applications.
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