Best non-SSD laptop drive for the money ???

[charlietee]

I have a Asus UL80J that the hard drive took a dive. I am looking at the 500gig Segate Momentus XT Hybrid 7200rpm 2.5" hard drive from NewEgg for $99.00 dollars.

Do any of you guys have experience with these drives? And what is the best non-SSD, Raptor lappy drive out there right now? I like 7200rpm drives but have heard that the newer 5400rpm drives are almost as fast requiring less power and producing less heat.

I have been using the Hitachi 7200rpm drives but have a feeling that there are better choices out there right now. WD Blue and Black drives are supposed to be good.

Any suggestions ???

Thank you for any feedback, links to reviews and reccomendations.

 

[groberts101]

While I have not used the XT myself(thought about buying a few to test in raid), I do have a cousin who bought one and he likes it very much. Reviews are decent on them too.

 

[charlietee]

I have been using the 7200rpm Hitachi's and they are very good lappy drives but I have heard that the Western Digital Black lappy drives are better.

Not that much difference in price between the WD Black and the Segate Momentus XT.

Funny it would seem that a bunch of people would be buying the XT's but I have not talked to anybody who has actually bought one. Guess they are still scared of Segate drives after the past problems.

 

[Doclife]

I replaced my laptop OEM HDD with this WD 500GB, 5400RPM

http://www.chiefvalue.com/product-_-...00159924010060

The reason I chose this HDD over others because it has 32MB cache, consumes less power and supposedly very reliable.

If your OS is not Windows 7/Vista, then you need to align the drive before installing your OS. WD provides the align software, HDD clone software on their website for free.

BTW Chiefvalue.com is the sister company of Newegg.com. They carry the same items but sometimes you'll get better deal from chiefvalue. Go figure.

 

[Zap]

I believe performance wise the Momentus XT is the best non-SSD for a notebook.

 

[Blain]

I'm using one of the XT Momentus drives in a Windows 7 desktop machine.
I like it's performance, but "for the money", I'd opt for a WD Black WD2500BEKT.

* Single platter drive, runs cool, is fast, cheap and has a five year warranty.

 

[kmmatney]

I have a Seagate Momentus XT 500GB in my work laptop (used everyday). I previously had an 80GB SSD, and I certainly notice the difference going from the SSD to the XT. Overall, though, I do like the XT - tons of storage space and at times it feels SSD-like. It is noticably faster than a 320GB Fujitsu drive I have also used. I'm happy with the XT, but I have no idea how much faster it is compared to the non-XT models. It seems to run cool and quiet in my laptop.

I believe the 250GB XT drive is single platter, if that is important.

I bought my 500GB XT (well, work paid for it) for $129. I think its a pretty good deal at $99.

 

[mpx999]

5400 rpm drives are much slower than 7200rpm drives when it comes to operations/second (IOPS), and can only try to match them in sequential speeds.

The basic advantage of 5400 rpm drives is that they don't overheat. I've tried using Momentus XT in HP 6530b and it frequently went above 60C which is the maximum temperature that it can take. So I gave up and installed 5400 drive instead of it, and it runs cool. Momentus XT now runs in a desktop computer via 2.5" to 3.5" adapter.