WD Scorpio 320GB 5400RPM vs. Hitachi 200GB 7200RPM

[Mr. Friendly]

basically the WD wins, despite the RPM impairment. the higher density platters show it to be superior in almost everything. notice that the two systems the benchmarks are on shows that the WD Scorpio was actually on a system with a 300mhz disadvantage, so not only was the HDD slower, so was the PC overall!


YAAAY for High Density Platters! I can't wait to see what the Samsung Spinrite 500GB mobile drive will be like!

WD Scorpio 320GB Results are In! - Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion

[DaleF]

If it's so superior, why is it's access time higher? That's a very important factor. Also, it's average read is slower. I don't really see the superiority here...

[Prof. Dr. Silver]

I used to own a couple of Spinpoint P's that were 250Gb....great drives and so far the fastest I've had....but I gave em away to my little brother!

[Mr. Friendly]

Originally Posted by DaleF

If it's so superior, why is it's access time higher? That's a very important factor. Also, it's average read is slower. I don't really see the superiority here...

because the difference is so small between the drives there's not going to be any real world difference that's perceptible. that and the higher capacity and similar pricing of the HDD makes the bigger and almost as fast WD Scorpio the winner. aside from that, if you read the thread I linked to, the Hitachi was on a defragmented HDD whereas the WD Scorpio was not and it was insinuated that if the WD was, the differences would be even slimmer.

[DaleF]

Well, insinuating something and actually having evidence are two greatly different things. Also, I've found that defragmenting does little to help performance. In theory it should, but I've never been able to demonstrate it much.

[Cptn Vortex]

Well I defragged yesterday, and now I pwn the n00bs. I think it is the Placebo effect. Windows makes us think defragmenting makes things faster.

[DaleF]

The Windows defragmenting program certainly doesn't do anything.

[Mr. Friendly]

Originally Posted by DaleF

Well, insinuating something and actually having evidence are two greatly different things. Also, I've found that defragmenting does little to help performance. In theory it should, but I've never been able to demonstrate it much.

perhaps so, or the difference is so minimal, that like these two HDD, the performance difference is negligible and wouldn't be noticed.