Seagate Momentus 7200.2 160gb: Another Attempt

[Devonavar]

Seagate Momentus 7200.2: Another Attempt at a Quiet 7,200 RPM Notebook Drive

[andyb]

Our interest in notebook drives is largely based on using them as quieter alternatives to desktop drives, but our 7200.2 sample is no quieter than a good desktop drive, it's slower, smaller and four times the price. We could hope this is an anomaly, but without at least a handful of samples to compare, there's no way to know.

I presume that you wont be seeing any more samples of this drive to test.?

Its a real shame that Seagates 7200rpm line of laptop drives are not in the same league as their 5400rpm counterparts, the 5400.3 range are excelent, I sell them all of the time.

The sample variance that I have personally seen in the 5400.3 range is quite good, i.e. there is not a lot of variance (I have seen and used at least 15), and they are largely very good noisewise.

If the sample variance of the 7200.2 models are similar then they will all be as bad (noisewise) as SPCR's sample....... bring on the 7200.3


Andy

[LickMe]

I have this drive in the 120GB version. It does not emit the high pitched squeal mentioned in the review. It is a bit of a vibrator though, but it's definitely a lot more quiet than my old 7200rpm 80GB Seagate IDE drive, which I thought was reasonably quiet to begin with.

[leifeinar]

are there any proper silent 2,5" 7200 drives, been searching the web but havent found any one yet

[MikeC]

Small correction made to the article this morn:

Seagate is now one of three manufacturers making 7,200 RPM Notebook drives... Fujitsu also introduced 7,200 RPM notebook drives in two product lines earlier this year, including one that features perpendicular recording and tops out at 160GB.

Is it quieter than the competition? Hard to say until we have samples to compare, but they claim "2.5 bels (typ.)", which is what Seagate claims for idle.

[Devonavar]

hmm, strange. I wonder how I missed that when I was perusing Fujitsu's web site. Thanks Mike!