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Nowadays, more and more users prefer a compact and inexpensive notebook to a desktop PC. There is a vast choice of notebooks of different types on the market, from simple laptops based on Intel Celeron processors, up to powerful mobile stations based on AMD 64-bit processors. An average laptop carries one hard drive of 20 to 120 GB; there are also two-HDD portable systems, but they are rare. The purpose of this article is to help to make a right choice from the whole variety of existing notebook hard disk drives which user can find on the market. In terms of productivity, the most advanced position belongs to Seagate Momentus 7200.1 drives — they show the smallest average seek time — 10.5. On the other side, Hitachi states 10 ms as the average seek time for reading operations and 11 ms — for writing operations for its Travelstar 7200 RPM drives. Therefore we can resume about the approximately equal performance for high-end drives from Seagate and Hitachi companies. Having analyzing the characteristics stated by manufacturers (they can be found on the manufacturers’ web sites), we’ve come to a conclusion that almost all modern drives, which have the same spindle rotation speed and buffer size, show similar productivity. Thus, there is no point in taking productivity as the main criterion. So what HDD characteristics should we consider in making a choice? First of all, it’s a storage capacity you need. Then the reliability comes (pay special attention to the warranty). People trust their very important data to the notebooks (and, hence, to the hard drives) more and more often. That’s why those devices must be effectively reliable. At this point we could have finished looking for the other choice criteria, but, taking into consideration that notebook drives are used in a specific way — they are mobile, we will name one more criterion, which is a power consumption: the higher it is, the less time will notebook be able to run from a battery. In terms of storage capacity choice, user will have more options with Seagate drives (30…120 GB), Fujitsu (20…120 GB) and Hitachi (20…120 GB). The maximum capacity of Toshiba drives is 100 GB, and the maximum capacity of Western Digital and Samsung drives is 80 GB. Reliability is a very complex criterion, which can be evaluated only on the strong statistical basis. Practice has shown that drives with less number of heads are more reliable. In addition, it is also important how the heat is taken away from the drive (a HDD with 7200 RPM heats way more than a 5400-4200 RPM drive). The higher is the heat level, the bigger are chances for the HDD to die. It has been also noticed that in the badly heated drives failures are usually fatal — it’s usually either a heads deformation during their unloading (parking), heads stiction to the surface, or a spindle stuck. Heads deformation is a one the most fatal fault of a notebook HDD. This kind of fault comes from the Ramp Load/Unload system: the system consists of a plastic nest where the heads are unloaded (parked) after a power-down. Naturally, as a result of heating, the metal parts (including a head slider) expand more than plastic ones; the manufacturers have considered that and reserved some margin, but often it’s just not enough. Being expanded a slider can easily fail to fit again in its nest, or simply stuck in there that can lead to its deformation after the next power-on (because an actuator will try to get the slider from its nest with the all possible force). Hitachi drives are the most vulnerable to the kind of damage described above. Toshiba and Fujitsu drives have fewer problems with that. However, one should keep in mind about Toshiba drives — they suffer numerous surface damages caused by heads. Being exposed to continuous heating Toshiba heads start adhering to the surface that can lead to radial scratches as well as create local bad-blocks. One more trouble with Toshiba drives — a spontaneous password setting. What’s more, this password usually fits with the highest protection standards, and also includes symbols that are impossible to tape using an ordinary keyboard (e.g. character graphics symbols). Sometimes this problem also occurred for Hitachi drives. Fujitsu drives are associated with a sick reaction among the users: several years ago everybody was speaking about Fujitsu MPG troubles. Personally, the author tends to think of this as of an artificially boosted campaign among the hard disk data recovery specialists: as a matter of fact, there were no boom of an epidemic failure for Quantum Fireball Plus AS, IBM DTLA series (and also for the other series, e.g. the last «splash» — AVVA drives), Maxtor D540X-4K or Maxtor Athena (10 and 20 GB); though, they took place approximately at the same time as the failure boom for Fujitsu MPG. In author’s personal opinion, this trend for Fujitsu drives failure had been predetermined by the first steps taken by manufacturer on the way to the development of a new platter with the density of 20 GB — the first attempt encountered some bugs… That’s why the author tends to think that new hard drives such as Barracuda 7200.8 can potentially have the same fate. In the meantime, Fujitsu HDDs for the notebooks are less liable to a physical destruction. But they carry another problem that probably was inherited from the three-inch drives — they often have their system area «corrupted». With all this going on, the drive can «forget» about its real capacity; the drive can incorrectly be detected in BIOS or even start clicking. However, in most cases, repairs or extracting data from these drives aren’t that difficult to the hard disk data recovery specialists. The author would not consider Western Digital and Samsung hard drives as a good choice for a notebook at this stage; first of all, because those companies have quite small experience in manufacturing such drives. A couple of words about the power consumption: at this point all hard drives have similar characteristics. However, Seagate Momentus 5400.2 drives have an advantage over the others. Besides, they heat less than other drives. But those HDD (also not only 5400.2, but the whole model range of Seagate Momentus drives) often have a one very unpleasant defect: a damaged MBR (the very first sector of the drive) that is usually followed by the few bad-blocks over the surface. Anyway, considering that it is a non physical damage makes it easier for users not to give up: data restoration from this drive doesn’t require expensive methods being used. Besides that, user should remember that Seagate is one of a few manufacturers that offer HDD for portable PC not only with a traditional PATA interface, but also with a still quite exotic SATA interface. So, let’s sum up everything said here. In the aggregate of the three characteristics (reliability, capacity options, power consumption), the palm of leadership belongs to Seagate hard drives Momentus series. A 5 year warranty is a considerable advantage of those drives. After Seagate Momentus the author gives his choice to Fujitsu drives, and then — to Hitachi and Toshiba. It’s very important to determine in what conditions the notebook will be working. If its place is on the table with the pales of papers around (will suffer overheating) — then it’s better off choosing Fujitsu drive; if it’s going to accompany the user in travels (will suffer continuous vibrations) — then it’s better off going with Toshiba or Hitachi drives (4200 RPM) which proved themselves as the good shockproof drives. If notebook is expected to be running in a stable calm atmosphere (e.g. working as an ordinary workstation without moving it from place to place), then it’ll be fine with Hitachi drive with a big storage capacity.
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