1TB high performance internal laptop hard drive recommendation please!

SG1 2012-09-13 10:35:35 UTC #1

OK, following on from a thread here, it looks like I'm going to have to get a new hard drive.

1TB seems a good size for me, but I'd like some suggestions as to good HDDs/brands and SPEED that would be worth my while spending money on to get the most out of my (relatively new) machine.

It's a Dell XPS L502X with the following specs:

2.3 GHz i5 CPU (2 cores, 4 threads)
6GB RAM
1GB Nvidia GT 525M video card

...and the OS will be Windows 7. Also, best brands - IIRC Western Digital are the bees knees?

Thanks in advance!

VelleX 2012-09-13 13:15:24 UTC #2

Problem is that there is still no 1TB Hard Drive with 7200rpm. And the 750GB Drives are based on 375GB Platters, but 500GB Platters would be faster.
So the new 500GB Platter based 1TB Hard Drives with 5400rpm are almost as fast as the 7200rpm 750GB Hard Drives. Of course Access Time is higher.

SG1 2012-09-13 13:43:12 UTC #3

Ooooh… thanks for the reply - I assumed that all HDDs would have the same range of speeds.

So, 1TB 5400 is the fastest that I’ll be able to buy then?

Article link is no good for me unfortunately as I am English and the only other language that I speak is French (and a tiny amount of Japanese).

VelleX 2012-09-13 14:24:44 UTC #4

Just look at the Benchmark Pictures.
The 750GB 7200rpm Drives are at the moment the fastest. WD Scorpio Black and the hitachi are reaching about 125MB/s max.

But the 1TB 5400rpm Drives are reaching about 115MB/s max, so almost as fast. But as i wrote, the 7200rpm Drives of course have a better access time. But seems access time of the 5400rpm WD Drive is also not bad.

So if it really has to be a 1TB Drive, the WD Scorpio Blue or Hitachi Travelstar 5K1000 seems to be a good choice.

SG1 2012-09-13 14:43:00 UTC #5

Thanks again.

Because I’m replacing a 500GB HDD, I want to get a 1TB one to make it ‘worth it’, even if it is a little bit slower. I thought that it would be a simple question of selecting a speed, but it seems that each different brand of HDD has its little quirks - ARGH

So the Hitachi Travelstar 5K1000… are Hitachi known having good HDDs? I’ve heard great things about Western Digital but then… I don’t know atht much anyway!

AllanDeGroot 2012-09-14 10:57:27 UTC #6

IF you need to deal with a replacement under warranty WD has historically been easiest to deal with.