[ltp] Recommendation for new disk drive

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Fri, 17 Jul 2009, Joerg Bruehe wrote:
> > my experience says: go for a hitachi 7200 rpm drive

Agreed.  Get a Hitachi if you can, if not, a Seagate is also good.  Stay
away from data-munchers from Samsung and WD.

> 1) Doesn't 7200 rpm mean a higher power consumption?

Yes, but MUCH better performance.

>    It is rare that I need a long battery time, but I felt that less
> power usage is always good (less heat, ...).

I get a lot more heat from the GPU and the wireless card, than I ever got
from the HD even while doing some heavy IO.

If you get a Hitachi, just remember that they ABSOLUTELY REQUIRE the
platters to stop at least once every 48H if you want they to last (and this
is written in their technical datasheet).  If you let the disk sleep when
idle (not just head parking), that can be enough.  If you turn off the
laptop often, it is also obviously enough.

> 2) Do you recommend it because you have good experiences with Hitachi,
>    or do you also have less good ones with other manufacturers?

I have experiences with all three of them.  The Hitachi drives are the very
best HDs in existence, although the Seagate ones are also *really* good.
Both Hitachi and Seagate have decent enough engineering and firmware
(Hitachi is better), but AFAIK Seagate warranty is better (but never buy
anything Seagate that isn't backed by a 5 year warranty, it means they think
that product is trash).

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh