Face Off: Hitachi 7K100 vs Seagate 7200.1

Face Off: Hitachi 7K100 vs Seagate 7200.1

Published August 25, 2008 at 01:17:13 PM, by Tim Supples

Overview

Mobile storage has been at a plateau since Hitachi's popular 7K60 series. Platter sizes were limiting drive capacity to 100GB and 7200RPM spindle speeds were maxed out at 60GB. Fujitsu broke the barrier by announcing their 120GB drive back in February, unfortunately it was announced at only 4200RPM. Seagate's 120GB 5400.2 lineup followed in April, with Hitachi following the pack in July with their 120GB 4K120.

The world held their breath when the 100GB 7200RPM models were announced. Finally, a drive larger than 60GB that would offer near desktop performance with the 7200RPM spindle speed. Seagate and Hitachi promised high performance and high capacity, but unfortunately they couldn't deliver it in a timely manner. Seagate announced the 7200.1 in April, but product has only shown up at resellers in the past few weeks. Hitachi does better by announcing the 7K100 in May and availability a few weeks before Seagate, but both of these products were effectively vaporware for some time.

Seagate 100GB 7200.1

Hitachi 100GB 7K100

Setup Method

For our tests on these drives we used our trusty IBM Thinkpad T42, sporting the following specifications:

The Thinkpad T42 was set to run at full performance by setting the power scheme set to 'Home/Office Desk' with the AC plugged in, meaning that the CPU will not underclock while running the tests. For the battery performance test, the power scheme was set to 'Portable/Laptop'. This activates SpeedStep technology, which lowers CPU speed when not needed, thus increasing battery life. Screen brightness and audio were both set to 50% and Wi-Fi was turned off. Each test was repeated 3 times to ensure accuracy. Before each test was run, the laptop was rebooted and its hard drive defragmented.

Synthetic Tests

Bapco SYSmark2004SE is popular benchmark suite consists of two different performance scenarios and generates an overall score by taking the geometric mean of the individual scores.

• Internet Content Creation: In this scenario, the content creator creates a product related website targeting a broadband and narrowband audience. The user first renders a 3D model to a bitmap, while preparing web pages using a web site publishing tool. The user opens a video editing package, creates a movie from several raw input movie cuts and sound cuts and starts exporting it. While waiting on this operation, the user imports the rendered image into an image-processing package; modifies it and saves the results. Back in the 3D modeling software, the user modifies a 3D model and exports it to a vector-graphics format. Once the movie is assembled, the user edits it and creates special effects using one of the modified images as input. The user extracts content from an archive. Meanwhile, he uses an animation creation tool to open the exported 3D vector graphics file. He modifies it by including other pictures and optimizes it for faster animation. The final movie with the special effects is then compressed in a format that can be broadcast over broadband Internet. The web site is given the final touches and the system is scanned for viruses.
• Office Productivity: In this scenario, the office productivity user creates a marketing presentation and supporting documents for a new product. The user receives email containing a collection of documents in a compressed file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while a virus checking software scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed and the user begins creating the collateral documents. The user also accesses a database and runs some queries. A collection of documents are compressed. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet and used to generate graphical charts. The user then transcribes a document.. The user edits and adds elements to a slide show template. Finally, the user looks at the results of his work (both the slide show and the portable document) in an Internet browser.

Futuremark PCMark 2005 1.0.1 is the latest update to Futuremark's popular overall system benchmarking program. The 2005 version adds multithreading, DirectX 9, Windows Media Player 10, virus scanning, High Definition video playback (WMVHD), and a vast number of other tests to its suite. Testing your computer's CPU, RAM, hard drive and graphics card, PCMark05 drives your computer to the max to determine its strengths and weaknesses.

Bapco MobileMark 2005 is the latest version of the premier notebook battery life and performance under battery life metric based on real world applications.

• Office Productivity: The workloads in this category model a mobile professional at a fictitious automobile company. The worker creates documents using Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, accesses email, and creates graphics and animation with Photoshop and Flash to include in a multimedia presentation. An Internet browser is used to view presentations. The user also invokes file compression and virus detection in the background.

IOMeter 2004.07.30 is an I/O subsystem measurement tool, realistically simulating a wide range of I/O conditions. We use two main tests for both read and write, one to simulate maximum I/O's (Input/Output operations per second) and one to simulate maximum throughput (megabytes per second). The IOMeter manual specifies for max I/O's to use a test with 512 byte data sizes in a 100% sequential stream. For max throughput 64KB data sizes are used in a 100% sequential stream. We perform these tests at both 100% read and 100% write.

Real World Tests

Windows Startup Time is measured from the moment the power button is depressed until the Windows password protected logon appears. Please note these numbers may not be replicable on a different system, as the Thinkpad BIOS startup takes a fair amount of time.

400MB File Copy Time is measured as the time is takes to copy a 400MB file from the Windows desktop to the root folder of the drive (C:).

Half Life 2 Level Load Time is measured as the time from when the new level is selected until the "Half Life 2" intro sequence is displayed. The first level in the game was used. Game resolution was set to 1400x1050.

Idle Temperature is measured with the machine sitting on a table for thirty minutes after bootup, with no activity on the machine and power scheme set to "Home/Desktop." MobileMeter is used to measure the temperature.

Load Temperature is measured with the machine sitting on a table running IOMeter. IOMeter fills the hard drive's empty space with a file for use in its own testing. We measured the peak temperature during this time period of heavy drive writing.

Noise is measured purely qualitatively. Unfortunately we have no sound testing equipment suitable for this use, so we resort to using the good ol' human ear. Tests were performed in a quiet room, comparing the drives from a normal sitting position.

Synthetic Tests

Bapco SYSmark2004SE

Internet Content Creation

This part of SYSmark2004SE is not very hard drive dependant, and we see no difference between the two drives.

Office Productivity

Here we see the Hitachi 7K100 pull ahead slightly, a trend that will continue throughout our testing.

Total Score

Since the total score is merely a geometric mean of the two subscores, we see very little difference in total performance.

Futuremark PCMark 2005

Hard Drive Subtest

Again we see the 7K100 in the lead, slight as it may be. Both drives posted impressive and very close scores in the Hard Drive subtest categories, with neither holding a significant lead.

Total Score

With only a 3.9% lead, the Hitachi drive pulls ahead by a small margin. Small, but noteworthy.

IOMeter

Max I/O (Read)

We see a surprising change here, with the Seagate showing an impressive lead over the Hitachi. Part of this can be attributed to the 7200.1's slightly higher areal density.

Max Throughput (Read)

Despite Seagate's higher efficieny with smaller data sizes, Hitachi shows a respectable lead in pure data throughput. The pro's and con's of each drive in terms of synthetic testing should balance out in our real world performance tests, leaving a very close competition.

Bapco MobileMark 2005

Being within 7 minutes of eachother, this is within our expected margin of error. Thus we find no discernable difference in battery life.

Real World Tests

Windows Startup Time

Once again, we find a very small difference in Windows startup times. For consistency's sake we only timed loading until the login screen, but we feel that the Hitachi would show a similar�advantage also if loading a full complement of services and startup programs. Both times are blazing fast, but the trend of Hitachi maintaining a slight lead continues. When looking at these scores, it is important to keep in mind that while the 7K100 is faster by numbers, 0.9 seconds won't make a bit of difference to 99% of users out there.

400MB File Copy Time

The 7K100 is nothing if not consistent, maintaining its very small lead against the Seagate 7200.1.

Half Life 2 Level Loading Time

Our last real world test confirms every one before it: the Hitachi 7K100 is slightly faster than the 7200.1. We see the 7K100 leading by a bit more than usual here, due to the hard drive intensive nature of Half Life 2 level loading.

Idle & Load Temperatures

Idle temperatures are unsurprisingly the same, but the Hitachi does run a good 2 degrees C hotter under load than the Seagate drive. This is by no means anything to worry about, but a valuable observation none the less.

Noise
Unfortunately we have no bar graph for this test, but we still have a clear winner. The Hitachi exhibits a very noticeable amount of noise when seeking, a noise that would be noticeable by others in a quiet room. Seagate's 7200.1 is near inaudible from a normal sitting position. Putting one's ear up to the laptop, you can hear a slight high pitched whine from the 7200.1; whereas the Hitachi emits a lower and louder noise during operation. While the drives are rated at only 0.1 bels difference in both idle and operating noise, the difference is clear as day in person. Those who are sticklers about silent computing will want to spend the extra money for the Seagate.

Cost Analysis

Performance is not the only thing to consider when purchasing a hard drive, as no amount of performance matters if you can't afford it!

Both of these prices were checked the morning of publication, using the LaptopLogic Pricegrabber engine. We obtained these prices from online retailer ZipZoomFly. Compare current prices on both drives! (Note: LaptopLogic is not affiliated in any way with ZipZoomFly. They just happened to have the best price on both drives from a reputable retailer.)

Unfortunately the price difference is rather disheartening. The Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 is faster AND cheaper than the Seagate Momentus 7200.1. With desktop hard drives well below $0.50 per Gigabyte, notebook hard drives seem ridiculously expensive as it is. Seagate's drive only makes 2.5" storage prices seem more ridiculous, although it isn't entirely unjustified. Seagate does include a 5 year warranty, while Hitachi offers 3 years. Both warranty periods should be sufficient for most users, given the pace of mobile technology, but those extra 2 years are always a nice comfort.

Conclusion

The latest drives from Hitachi and Seagate have been long awaited by the general public. People building high performance notebooks were limited to 60GB of storage, a small amount by today's standards. Multimedia notebooks are coming in all shapes and sizes, and gaming freaks no longer have to resort to bulky dual hard drive notebooks for extra storage. These high capacity drives are redefining mobile storage performance, and have done it well.

Despite the stellar performance seen here, we have one clear winner in performance and price. Hitachi's Travelstar 100GB 7K100 consistently proved itself faster in our testing, and did so at a substantially lower price point. Keep in mind that the Hitachi won our tests by a fairly small margin, realistically producing very similar real world experiences. If you were to use these drives in the same computer, you would probably not notice a big difference during your normal usage; if any difference is noticeable at all. However you will notice a difference in your wallet. The 7K100 is a full $88 cheaper at the time of this writing, making this decision very easy for most consumers. Keep in mind you get a quieter drive and 2 years of extra warranty with the Seagate, which some consumers value over a lower price tag.

Normally at this point we would stick a pretty logo in the page saying which product won our respect and admiration. The results of this head to head are clear: Hitachi takes the cake in performance and price compared to the 7200.1. However our final verdict as to which 2.5" hard drive is best for you will come with our extensive drive roundup. We've assembled a large number of the latest and greatest 2.5" drives on the market today, with even more comprehensive tests than you see here today. Stay tuned for our in-depth look at 2.5" hard drives!

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Technical Specifications

No specifications are available.