May 07, 2010
Hitachi 500GB Travelstar SATA 7200 RPM Laptop Internal Hard Drive HD20500IDK/7K – Retail
Posted by: kk : Category: Computer Components
- Boost performance and increase the capacity of your laptop
- Advanced power-saving technology helps your laptop last longer between charges
- Proven 4th generation technology for rock solid reliability
- Exceptional protection against bumps and rough handling
- Full replacement, worry-free limited warranty
Product Description
Award winning high performance and capacity Travelstar 2.5-inch hard drive is the perfect solution to boost the speed and storage capacity of your computer system
Hitachi 500GB Travelstar SATA 7200 RPM Laptop Internal Hard Drive HD20500IDK/7K – Retail
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5 Responses to “Hitachi 500GB Travelstar SATA 7200 RPM Laptop Internal Hard Drive HD20500IDK/7K – Retail”
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May 8th, 2010 at 12:49 am
You will not find a better laptop hard drive for your money.
Keep in mind that most (if not all) laptops will require the 2.5″ size. Drives 3.5″ are usually meant for desptops. Factor in that this runs at 7200 rpms and has 500gb capacity it’s currently the best laptop replacement drive out there for the sub $80 price range.
PROs:
(1) The only alternative to Seagate’s 500gb 7200rpm model embarassment (AFAIK). Western Digital does not make a 2.5″ 500gb 7200rpm drive at the time of this review.
(2) Will fit my macbook pro.
(3) Does indeed have 16mb cache (memory buffer) – putting this in here as one reviewer [...] was complaining that this has no cache. It does. Look at the hitachi website product descriptor if you must.
Cons:
(1) Really can’t think of any.
Rating: 5 / 5
May 8th, 2010 at 1:55 am
Hitachi HD’s always deliver amazing performance, and this Retail Boxed 2.5″ 7200RPM 500GB SATA II notebook drive does not disappoint! Using HD Tune Pro 3.50 I charted my example from more than 100MB/sec (Actual 108MB/sec) for the highest speed it reads to a low of just less than 50MB/sec, for an average across the volume of 80.5MB/sec. That makes this HD the fastest 2.5″ notebook 7200RPM HD I’ve ever tested, and I’ve tested a bunch of them–all good mind you, but this Hitachi 16mb Cache 7200RPM 500GB SATA II HD is simply the King of the Hill @ 80.5MB/sec average speed across the whole volume…just incredible!
I have uploaded the image of that performance here at Amazon.com so you can see it for yourselves, because it should be seen to be believed, and I’ve done that for all of you to see just how good this HD really is. The seek speed is 17.9MB.sec across the volume, which does *not* beat a Western Digital Scorpio Black 7200RPM 320GB HD, but it has less area to cover in terms of overall size, and it is a good 15-20MB/sec slower overall than the Hitachi is, @ just over 64/MB/sec for its top speed.
The other nice characteristic of Hitachi notebook HD’s is their acoustical noise, or rather a lack of it, and this HD doesn’t disappoint there either, as it’s virtually silent as it goes about it business, reading and writing in my Asus UL30Vt-X1 13.3″ notebook. In fact I cannot hear a thing from the Hitachi HD, it’s that silent, doesn’t make even a whirring noise, just is silent as can be for a HD…so Kudos for Hitachi Global Storage for making this the best 7200RPM 2.5″ HD in the world today.
I can’t stress enough how good this retail boxed HD really is, but with 16GB Cache and a fast 7200RPM speed, it really makes mincemeat out of any reading or writing assignment. And it’s a nice package, the retail box itself, of course! There’s the HD which is mounted inside the box in its special carrier, to prevent damage inside the box during shipping, and it’s also wrapped up in a special “Moisture Proof” Electro-static Bag, which has a big packet of anti-static Silica Gel inside the bag, so Hitachi is taking no chances with the shipment of their precious HD’s.
I always prefer buying a Retail Boxed HD also, because human hands don’t touch them, they are always secure inside of their boxes in their special carrier assemblies, and this box and packaging is no doubt one of the best in that regard. It comes with a Seal across the top tab and flap, so you can be certain that nobody has opened the HD up and tampered with it, changed it, or stolen it! So that’s a good thing too, the Retail Box of this HD itself.
With an average speed of more than 80MB/sec across the volume according to my testing, and a Burst Speed of more than 145 MB/sec, I have never seen a 2.5″ notebook HD perform like this, other than a WD Raptor 10K Enterprise HD, of course…one of those will outperform this HD, but that is about it! And that HD is NOT a 9.5mm form factor so it won’t fit in a notebook anyway.
This is, at this time, the fastest 2.5″ notebook 7200RPM HD in the world bar none, and you can buy it here at Amazon.com in its Retail Box, secure and safe in there away from human tampering and screw-ups, and bad packaging, all of the good reasons to always purchase HD’s in retail boxes if possible, so there you go!
I give the Hitachi 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache HD my solid 5-Stars Endorsement and approval, and recommend it over any and all other choices, Seagate, Western Digital, whatever the other choices are they are no match for this HD. This is the best, Hitachi GST’s premiere 500GB 2.5″ SATA II HD, and you can get it here at Amazon.com for a pittance, and have the best of all worlds: speed, big size, and the security of knowing it’s going to come to you in a Retail Box, not a loose packed HD which can get into all kinds of trouble and problems being shipped–not this one!
Rating: 5 / 5
May 8th, 2010 at 4:32 am
I primarily purchased the Travelstar(tm) 7K500 due to my concern of the high oscillation level of the OEM supplied 7200 RPM WD 160GB (including the upgraded WD 320GB 7200 RPM drive) in my Dell D Series Latitude. The WD’s are quality products (fast, and reliable data transfer); however, the design of the Latitude D Series lacks any HD carriage dampening (HD mounts directly to the notebook chassis and SATA connector w/o shock/vibration dampers). As an Engineer, I was greatly concerned on the long-term effect of rotational resonance which could result in premature component failure). After reading positive comments on the Hitachi 7200 RPM 500GB drive, my hope was that the Hitachi would mitigate the poor Latitude H/D carriage design. The results after installing the Hitachi are superb. I highly recommend this quality product.
Rating: 5 / 5
May 8th, 2010 at 7:08 am
If you are looking to upgrade your hard drive for more space/speed, look no further. This is the BEST HDD I ever owned. Super fast, Ultra quiet. I replaced a WS Scorpio blue 320 GB, 5400 rpm drive on my HP DV4T laptop. WD was louder, more heat and obviously slower coz it was 5400 rpm. At the time I bought DV4T back in June 2009, HP was not offering 7200 rpm drives , so I was forced to go with 5400 rpm. So, I was looking out to replace it with a bigger and faster drive. Glad I chose this Hitachi drive as the replacement. Installation was smooth, no hiccups. Was able to install Windows 7 upgrade over my original Vista much faster. Runs quiet. I couldn’t be happier. Great product at a great price. If you don’t have enough cash to cough up for a SSD, this is ur best bet. Now i am gonna install Linux after partitioning the drive. Buy it and u won’t regret it. (Also, Seagate has a similar drive which is sub-par according to the reviews on amazon.com. WD is yet to release a 500 GB, 7200 rpm drive)
Rating: 5 / 5
May 8th, 2010 at 9:05 am
I bought this after a lot of research and could not be happier with the results. The drive is almost completely silent. You have to put your ear to your laptop in a totally silent room to be able to hear it.
It is very fast. I upgraded to this from a 4200rpm hard drive in my laptop, which starts up in a fraction of the time it used to, programs start up in a flash, and I can finally use my firewire 800 port (I have a 17″ macbook pro) and have it transfer data extremely quickly. I haven’t gotten it up to 800mbps yet, but I believe that is largely because of the write speed of the disc I was writing to.
My computer also performs much faster in general. Icon previews are already there when you open a finder window, no waiting for them to load. Finder windows open and display contents faster. iTunes is more responsive, no lag switching songs. Programs can access data faster, so they perform faster. All in all, if you have a drive that is slower than 7200rpm, upgrading to this drive will be like upgrading from a minivan to a Ferrari.
And last but certainly not least, I now have nearly 300gb of free space…ON MY LAPTOP!!!!! As a video editor, this is invaluable.
I almost gave this 4 stars for ease of installation because I had to go to Best Buy and have the Geek Squad install it, but I realized that had nothing to do with the drive and was entirely because of the design of my (3 year old) Macbook Pro. If you have a newer one, you should be able to install it yourself pretty easily and without voiding the warrantee.
Great drive, nothing bad about it so far, and if it breaks I know it has a 3 year warrantee, and I keep everything backed up with Time Machine, so I am very happy with my purchase. If you need more space and more speed, this is the drive for you.
Rating: 5 / 5