1. Fast Hard Drives: The Key To High System Performance

• Momentus ST94811A 40GB...
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Cheaper prices and performance gains continue to drive notebook PC growth in the private and consumer sectors. The performance gap between desktop PCs and notebooks also continues to decrease. Notebook graphics processors show improvements as well.

But while overlooked by many, hard-drive manufacturers now offer faster and larger data storage devices in a 2.5" format, which are also instrumental in the notebook sector's performance jump. Users see faster bootups and over better system performance as applications startup and data are processed at a faster rate.

While mainstream notebooks are still largely equipped with hard drives that have spindle speeds of 4200 rpm, high-end mobile PCs with 5400-rpm hard disk are beginning to emerge. Over the medium term, the faster drives will replace the slower ones, and as early as 2005 more than 50% of all notebooks are expected to be equipped with a spindle speed of 5400 rpm, according to Gartner Dataquest 03/2003. The new elite, 2.5" hard drives with 7200 rpm, is, on the other hand, only to be found in a handful of machines.

The rpm of the hard drive, or more precisely the rpm of the spindle on which the disks sit, is one of the most important parameters of hard-drive performance. Because as the rpm increases, the latency for data transfer is reduced, and the internal data rate rises. Thus the following simple rule holds true: The faster the disks turn, the faster data can be transferred. This has a positive effect on system performance.

Assuming that all other parameters of the hard drive remain the same, the higher rpm means higher power consumption as well. The higher energy use in turn results in a lower battery life.

Manufacturers like Seagate and Hitachi, however, advertise their products by saying that their current 2.5" HD models do not use more energy at 5400 rpm (Seagate Momentus) or 7200 rpm (Hitachi 7K60) than the less performing 4200 and 5400 models of competitors.

So, what kind of system performance increase can be achieved by using a faster hard drive? How high is the gain in performance with hard drive-intensive applications like transcending a digital video? How much battery life does the notebook sacrifice with a faster hard drive?

We tested three speed classes of 4200rpm, 5400rpm and 7200rpm hard drives by IBM Travelstar 40GN, Seagate Momentus and Hitachi 7K60.