Hitachi Travelstar 7k320

Hitachi Travelstar 7k320

Published October 20, 2008 at 04:36:46 PM, by Justin Wolfson

You've done it. You've finally filled up your laptop's hard drive, and you're dying to add another few gigabytes of your favorite songs and movies to your collection. You've got to get yourself a bigger hard drive, but for years an increase in size has meant a downgrade in performance, making you hesitate to do so. Well sir or madam, there's no need to drag your feet any longer. Modern drives today are not just bigger or faster than their predecessors, they're bigger and faster! Or your money back*.

To prove this attractive sounding sales pitch, we took a brand new Hitachi Travelstar 7K320 320GB 7200rpm and popped it into the Lenovo SL400, which we recently reviewed HERE, and tested like mad.

To make the comparison meaningful, we looked back at the test results from an older Hitachi 7K200 200GB. At the time that was one of the largest 7200rpm hard drives available. We were pretty sure our newer model would still blow the 4200rpm Fujitsu that the older model was originally compared against out of the water, but we were more curious to see if the increase in size caused any notable performance differences between our two 7200rpm units.

* I'd like to think I'm a funny guy, but our lawyers have instructed me that lawsuits are not funny. So just to be clear, this money back claim was entirely fabricated to make a segue. It'd be nice though if it was true, wouldn't it?

Design
A very slim standard looking laptop hard drive. Same size and feel as the Fujitsu.

Specifications
Capacity 320GB (2x160) Interface SATA 2.5" (mobile) (3gb/s) Spindle Speed(RPM) 7200 Buffer Memory 16mb Average Seek (ms) 12 Average Latency (ms) 4.2 Power 1.8W read/write, 0.2W standby Track-toTrack seek time (ms) 1.0 Maximum External Transfer Rate (Mb/S) 150 Data Transer rate on SATA up to 1136 mb/s Discs/heads 2/4 Operating Temperature (Celsius) 5-55 degrees C Non-Operating Temp. (Celsius) -40 to 65 Shock, Operating: 2ms (Gs) 400 Shock, Nonoperating 2ms (Gs) 1000 Dimensions .37 x 2.75 x 3.93 System Specifications Model Lenovo SL400 Processor Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz) Front Side Bus 1066MHz LCD 14.1" WXGA+ (1440 x 900) Memory 2 GB PC2-5300 @ 667 MHz (MAX 4 GB) Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS 256MB Operating System Windows Vista Ultimate

Synthetic Tests
IOMeter 2006.07.27 is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool, originally developed by Intel. We run four different tests using IOMeter, consisting of two different tests performed at both 100% read and 100% write. CPU utilization is also measured during each test. To obtain an idea of CPU utilization, we averaged the read & write utilization during each of the Maximum I/O and Maximum Throughput tests. This test would not run under Windows Vista.

Maximum Throughput: This test simulates maximum drive throughput using 64KB packet sizes in 100% sequential order, performed at both 100% read and 100% write. Maximum I/O: This test simulates maximum drive I/O performance using 512 Byte packet sizes in 100% sequential order, performed at both 100% read and 100% write.

WorldBench6 is a subsystem-level benchmark that measures the performance of a PC's graphics, disk, and video subsystems in a Windows environment. We ran the Disk Transfer Rate test.

HD Tach is a low level hardware benchmark for random access read/write storage devices such as hard drives, removable drives (ZIP/JAZZ), flash devices, and RAID arrays. HD Tach uses custom device drivers and other low level Windows interfaces to bypass as many layers of software as possible and get as close to the physical performance of the device possible.

HD Tune is a hard disk utility which measures transfer rate, access time, CPU usage, and burst rate.

Real World Tests
400MB File Copy Time is measured as the time it takes to copy a 400MB file from the Windows desktop to the root folder of the drive.

400x1MB File Copy Time is measured as the time it takes to copy four hundred 1MB files from the Windows desktop to the root folder of the drive.

I/O Meter
Sadly, I/O Meter is not yet compatible with Vista and we were unable to successfully run these tests. We did, however, repeatedly test what it was like to try and run I/O Meter on Vista anyway. The result: frustration. I'll spare you the details, but needless to say I have to apologize on I/O Meter's behalf as it will not be appearing in this review.

I don't really know what to make of the fact that this got a 71 when the SL400 with the older hard drive got a 97. Some unknown variable must have thrown off this test. WorldBench tests the overall computing power of a unit and not just the hard drive, so either way it's no surprise that the results from our test on an older machine are lower here.

HD Tach
The 7K320 compares well to the 7K200, posting a slight improvement in Burst Speed and Average Read but also a slight decrease in Random Access. Just like the 7K200 it uses a lot more of the CPU than the older Fujitsu, but in all other categories in blows it out of the water.

HD Tune
Interestingly, in this test, the 7K320 actually uses far less CPU than the 7k200 and the Fujitsu. These times are both faster than the 7k200, and both far faster than the Fujitsu. However these tests will be partially dependent on other hardware factors, so the newer computer probably helps.

Conclusion
The need to sacrifice speed for space or vice-versa is gone with the advent of these modern mobile HDDs. The Hitachi 7k320 performs every bit as well if not better than its 200GB cousin, not even flinching under the weight of its industry leading 320GB of 7200rpm storage. If you need the space though, there are a few models out there now touting 500GB at 5400rpm. So I guess you can still sacrifice a little speed for more space if you want. But the trend is clear - more and more, spindle speed capacities are catching up to storage capacities, and the 7k320 is a prime example. If you're looking for lots of space at a great speed, then this hard drive is worth the price tag ($180) and comes recommended.

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Technical Specifications

No specifications are available.