5. Hitachi TravelStar 7K60 - 60 GB

Here it is: the old and the new champion. Due to its higher spindle speed, the TravelStar 7K60 is considerably faster than any other notebook hard drive. Nearly all the benchmarks are dominated by this drive. When it comes to I/O performance, application benchmark results and pure data transfer rates the 7K60 has no peer.

Despite this, there are two disadvantages to the drive. First, the maximum capacity is 60 GB, and second, the drive makes more noise than other models. That said, the noise should be taken in perspective - with an idle notebook one you will always hear the drive running, any CPU fan will drown it out anyway. None of the THG editors has ever complained about the noise level.