>500GB Drives

[Mercutio]

The 750GB is in stock now, but it is too thick for my interests.

That's what she said!

Thank you! I'll be here all week. Try the chicken.

 

[Stereodude]

What?!?! No veal? :bleh:

 

[LunarMist]

That's what she said!

Thank you! I'll be here all week. Try the chicken.

Huh? Chicken... here all week? Is that an obscure line from a film?

 

[Stereodude]

Huh? Chicken... here all week? Is that an obscure line from a film?

It's from Shrek, but the line is veal, not chicken.

 

[LunarMist]

I vaguely recollect that movie from an airplane flight. Edie Murphy was the Jackass?
I can't remember the point of the film, but I gave up watching after a while.

 

[Stereodude]

Yes, Eddie Murphy was the Donkey.

 

[LunarMist]

Time is running out. The 750GB drive is deactivated for some reason. Viable options are only the external Seagate 640GB 9.5mm and external WD 750GB 12.5 mm. Should I just buy more of the Seagates and rip the drives out? Are there any reliablity problems with them?

 

[Mercutio]

I've not had a problem with recent Seagate notebook drives. I've got 6 of the 500GB 7200.4s doing various things and other than a slightly annoying clicking sound they make when they start up, they've been good.

 

[LunarMist]

I've not had a problem with recent Seagate notebook drives. I've got 6 of the 500GB 7200.4s doing various things and other than a slightly annoying clicking sound they make when they start up, they've been good.

I have one of the 500GB 7200.4 which was used for 46 hours in a computer and then pulled for the larger drive. Now the 7200.4 is destined for the heap-o-drives.

 

[udaman]

Time is running out. Viable options are only the external Seagate 640GB 9.5mm and external WD 750GB 12.5 mm

<huh?

http://blog.penguintrail.com/?p=257

With drive platters now at 320GB or greater, it seems only a matter of time before there is a two-platter 640GB notebook hard drive... but no company is selling a standard 9.5mm height 2.5” drive with capacity beyond that. But Seagate will be very soon. Let’s take a look at the drive…

Indeed, Seagate’s Momentus 5400.7 640GB (ST9640322AS) is the first such drive. Seagate have not announced this drive, but it will be arriving soon. In the meantime, let’s take an exclusive look at the world’s first 640GB notebook hard drive.

Later this year?

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/09/01/toshiba.640gb.note.drive/

two platters to make up its entire storage, the 5,400RPM disk is thin enough at 9.5mm tall to fit in thin-and-light notebooks and also gets incidental boosts from the increased density. Toshiba claims that it's faster, with "significant" speed-ups through the reduced amount of time finding data, and that it consumes 28 percent less power compared to earlier models.

 

[udaman]

Otay, nobody interested in true 9.5mm 2 platter 640GB drives??? Guess LM has more time on his hand than he thinks...then, drama queen

Well then LM needs to... get a Mac

all unibody MBP (even the new 13in model) can take/squeeze 12.5mm height drives, it is said! I would have thought with their slim design 1in thick profiles, thin laptops could not fit 12.5mm drives? Guess than means the thin laptops could be even thinner, all the better to fry Merc's nuts.

http://hothardware.com/News/WD-Debuts-750GB-And-1TB-25-Scorpio-Blue-HDDs/

So if 1TB is not enough for LM, then with a Mac laptop, you've got the FW port that will provide enough power to run a dual external 2.5in enclosure... *if* those 12.5mm drives will fit the external = 2TB raid, w00t

http://www.myservice.com/harddrives.html

750GB Western Dig 5200rpm* $375

*For all Unibody MacBook Pro & 17" (Silver Keys) MacBook Pro only.

^ you can of course roll your own and buy a bare 1TB WD Scorp Blu for $230 now

 

[Stereodude]

Otay, nobody interested in true 9.5mm 2 platter 640GB drives??? Guess LM has more time on his hand than he thinks...then, drama queen

LM already has several of them. :scratch:

 

[LunarMist]

LM already has several of them. :scratch:

Yes, I bought a couple of them a few weeks ago and then another one about 10 days ago.

 

[LunarMist]

In one year capacity has only increased from 500GB to 640GB. Are there any improvements on the horizon?

 

[Mercutio]

The year before that we went from 250GB drives to 500GB drives.
I'm sure they'll get even bigger in the near future, but magnetic disks have kind of stagnated generally. We only went from 1.5TB to 2TB in the desktop world this year, too.

 

[MaxBurn]

Well that whole perpendicular recording thing was pretty huge. Big jumps like that only come about once in a while not every year like the little refinements do.

 

[Stereodude]

I don't think there's a pile of market demand for super large drives. That probably accounts for some of the slow progress.

 

[Mercutio]

Has there ever been a pile of demand for super large drives?

 

[LunarMist]

I thought that there was a goal to decrease platter count in the mid-priced drives. For many years the capacity of a then current two-platter 3.5" drive was the best value, although that is not case now.

 

[Stereodude]

Has there ever been a pile of demand for super large drives?

I think there was in the past with OS bloat, games, programs etc. There just hasn't been any compelling use case pushing demand for >1TB drives. I also think the whole GPT thing for >2TB drives doesn't help things either.

 

[sechs]

It seems like there'd be more call for them on the enterprise side, where there's more money to be made, anyway.

 

[LunarMist]

If I were to bite the bullet and get that WD10TEVT even if the ass is hanging out, what reliable vendors have them? Searches don't reveal familar names. Thanks.

 

[LunarMist]

Since when has the 640GB Samsung been available? It's only been at Newegg today or maybe yesterday. I wonder if Samsung can cram 3x~333GB platters in a 9.5 mm drive similarly to their first 500GB drive?

 

[Mercutio]

Apropos of nothing in this thread, one problem I have with 500GB 2.5" drives is that they are a lot more finicky about starting up off a pair of USB connections than, say, 160GB drives are. I was really hoping I could move all my sysprep images and virtual machines to one drive, but I don't think it's going to happen for a generation or two.

 

[LunarMist]

I've had no problems with 2.5" USB-powered drives in many years, and that is with a dozen 500-640GB drives including 7200RPM. The last drives that caused me grief were the 100GB and 120GB Seagate IDE types.

 

[Mercutio]

All of the drives I'm having this issue with are Seagate 7200.4s, but I see it as surely on desktops as notebooks; they almost never spin up until I either add a third USB connection or go through an excessive amount of unplugging and re-plugging. It doesn't seem to be an issue on my 160s and 250s.

Also, I just realized there are *10* 2.5" drives in my laptop bag at the moment. I need to clean this stuff up.

 

[LunarMist]

Why do you use 7200 RPM USB drives? The 500GB 7200.4 is a disappointment, being barely faster than a good 500GB 5400 RPM drive.

 

[Mercutio]

My choices for 7200rpm 2.5" drives were Seagate and Hitachi. I bought Seagate 'cause I've not found 2.5" Hitachi drives to be terribly reliable.

Some of those 500GB drives have wound up repurposed as external disks. I didn't buy them for that.

 

[Tannin]

I can't recall ever having a problem with USB drives spinning up. Not saying it has never, ever happened to me, but if it has it was a long, long time ago and I can't remember it. Nor can I recall ever needing a second USB connection for a hard drive.

Nearly all of my external drives are 2.5 inch Samsung (of course), currently mostly 500MB units and I'll no doubt transition them to 640GB over time, but I also have the odd other brand unit - Hitachi and Seagate, I think.

None of them are 7200 RPM units - for my purposes, speed is unimportant in an external drive, reliability is cruical, and battery life is also important.

I think it must be just an issue Seagate have at the moment.

 

[LunarMist]

You expect reliability in a notebook hard drive? *cough* No such thing.

 

[Tannin]

Number of Samsung notebook drives I have had fail: zero. Seems like a rough imitation of reliability to me. I have seen two notebook drives fail in computers I sold new over the last few years. Both were OEM drives; one Hitachi and the other was either Hitachi or Western Digital (memory fails me at this point). We use Samsung notebook drives as internal replacements, and for external drives.

 

[LunarMist]

I had 1 of 4 bad Samsung notebook drives and 1 of 6 bad desktop drives.

 

[LunarMist]

If I were to bite the bullet and get that WD10TEVT even if the ass is hanging out, what reliable vendors have them? Searches don't reveal familar names. Thanks.

There is a 1TB drive now, but it uses the oversized sectors, so no dice.

 

[Handruin]

It's also listed as 12.5mm in height which might not fit some laptops.

 

[udaman]

There is a 1TB drive now, but it uses the oversized sectors, so no dice.

LOL, I got trolled by U know who for mentioning that drive in the SR thread...thx 4 nothing...I guess

It's also listed as 12.5mm in height which might not fit some laptops.

^yep, and I also mentioned that about the drive & that...shall I repeat with threat of trolling...all current MBP's can fit that drive, no problem.

If U absolutely need to use a PC & 9.5mm laptop drive, then wait for the new 750 Toshiba, but hey, don't blame me when that less durable PC laptop breaks/gets killed .

http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/03/24/toshiba.makes.1tb.for.thin.and.light.portables/

Toshiba moved notebook storage a significant step forward on Wednesday night by launching the MK7559GSXP. The 2.5-inch drive is the first to hold 750GB but reach the same 9.5mm (0.37in) height as most slimmer notebook hard drives. As such, it can provide the capacity expected of a desktop hard drive but fit into thin-and-light notebooks like the MacBook Pro as well as all-in-one desktops and digital media hubs.
Despite having about 17 percent more capacity, the new SATA II drive consumes about 14 percent less power than the 640GB drive it's set to replace and could extend the theoretical battery life. It spins at just 5,400RPM, but its very high density, two-platter design may compensate for the perceived drop in access speed.

In tandem with the thin drive, Toshiba is rolling out the MKxx59GSM line, which brings 750GB and 1TB drives but in a taller three-platter, 12.5mm (0.49in) profile more suited to desktop replacement notebooks and other computers where thinness isn't an absolute priority. Either rotates at the same speed but is slightly less energy-efficient.

All three of the disks are due to start sampling for system builders in April and should enter mass production soon afterwards.

 

[LunarMist]

It's also listed as 12.5mm in height which might not fit some laptops.

It might fit in the empty space, but I'm not about to try it yet. Let's see if there are larger 9.5 mm drives by July-August.

 

[LunarMist]

Interesting, but it is not really enough and has the same formatting issue. The question is whether all future drives will be that type.

 

[Pradeep]

Looks like 4k is here to stay. Does it affect external drives formatted with fat32?

 

[mubs]

I read somewhere that the 4k sectors will not be a problem on external drives (accessed via FW, USB, etc).

 

[Pradeep]

Looks like the drives will deal with it OK (for XP users with plans for a single volume the jumper can be set to allow XP to start the format at sector 64 (63+1 - indeed a hack as they call it). For Vista and 7 users they can run WD Align.

"This information already tells us something: apparently, the two latest Windows editions are ready to work with 4KB sector size, while Windows XP is not. In addition, according to WD’s instructions, there seems to be something that needs to be aligned under certain conditions. This refers to logical versus physical sectors. All drives that utilize 4KB sector size still emulate 512 byte sectors on the interface side for compatibility reasons, as applications will continue to use 512 byte sectors for quite a while. Therefore, the new 4KB physical blocks store eight 512 byte logical blocks. This is where issues may crop up."

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wd-4k-sector,2554-3.html

From this I gather that when you attach a 4K drive attached via an external interface, when you partition the drive, Win 7/Vista will align the partitions properly.

The actual reading/writing of data is not affected, in terms of later connecting to a non 4K aware OS or device. The only time you need to potentially worry is at format time.