Lab test: 8 ATA / S-ATA 7200 RPM hard drives (page 14: Conclusion)

Conclusion

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 is the one hard drive with a better performance than the others. Whether in ATA or Serial ATA version, the 7K250 provides the best results, especially due to its small access time. In addition it has low noise (besides the ITF problem on certain discs-see section on noise results) and has a slightly higher platter capacity than average. This series is faultless and we hope for Hitachi/IBM that there is no repeat of the 60GXP and 75GXP’s lack of reliability.

The Maxtor hard drives were disappointing. It seems that the DiamondMax Plus 9 with 80 GB platters has a reduced access time compared to the previous generation. They came in last place in terms of performance (with AAM deactivated). The low noise level during disc rotation could have given the DiamondMax Plus 9 a good grade in this area but this result is ruined by noise in access.

Seagate was the Dr. Jekyl and Mr Hyde of this test. One hard drive was the efficient but quite noisy S-ATA, and the other was the silent but worst performing ATA. It’s a shame that they didn’t give us the possibility to activate or de-activate the Audio Acoustic Management. One of Seagate’s advantages, however, is that it has the most reliable hard drives-according to figures provided by our retail partner LDLC.

The lack of information regarding the type of platters(40, 60 or 80 GB?) in Western Digital’s hard drives is more than annoying even if in the short term all production will be with 80 GB platters. Beside this, the hard drives provide great performances and are in second place. This good result is tarnished by a high level of noise due to ball bearing engines.

And what can we expect for 2004? We are reaching limits in terms of platter density and LMR type writing heads. Seagate recently announced the release of hard drives with 100 GB platters, which could be the latest evolution in this technology. PMR technology, which is in the last stage of development should permit a higher storage capacity of around 175 GB. In the meantime, manufacturers could work on reducing the access times of their ATA / SATA hard drives, as Western Digital did with the Raptor.