Hitachi 7K80 and 7K250 - what's the difference?

Ned Slider · Post by **Ned Slider** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 2:27 am

Hi,

I'm looking for a new quiet HD to replace a very whiney Maxtor D740X-6L. I want an 80GB PATA model. Noise/price are of main concern.

The Samsung drives are too expensive here in the UK. I've found a good price on a Seagate 7200.7 but wasn't sure about it as there seem to be confilicting reports here as to it's noise.

I bought an 80GB Hitachi 7K250 recently (labelled May 2004) and it's very quiet so I was looking to get another. However, I can now only find 7K80 models available. Is this a newer model? and does anyone know the difference between the two?

Thanks,

Ned

Derek Baker · Post by **Derek Baker** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 7:55 am

How much is too expensive? http://www.google.dealtime.co.uk/xPC-Sa ... 802N_80_GB

Derek

Ned Slider · Post by **Ned Slider** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 8:08 am

Thanks for the link. With delivery they're about £10 more which translates to about 25% more at this price point. I decided to get the Seagate 7200.7 as I couldn't find any info on the Hitachi 7K80.

I just hope it's not too noisey.

Thanks anyway,

Ned

Derek Baker · Post by **Derek Baker** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:13 am

Good luck with the new drive, but I have to say that to me it wouldn't matter what the percentage was if it translates in to £10.

Derek

luminous · Post by **luminous** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:15 am

Yeah £10 for silence is a very small price to pay. How many hundreds have people at this site spent to get "the right stuff".

Ned Slider · Post by **Ned Slider** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:23 am

I know what you mean and I do agree, just that money is really tight atm. Plus all the talk of the different motor types on the samsung drives put me off. I'm not prepared to take a chance and pay an extra £10 for the priveledge. I just want a drive that doesn't have the loud high pitched idle whine that my current maxtor has.

I really only wanted some info on the Hitachi 7K80 model.

Ned

Putz · Post by **Putz** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:28 am

7k80 is a 2.5" form-factor drive (ie. laptop-size), as opposed to traditional 3.5" drives like the 7k250. Noise-related information on these new Hitachis is still very limited, AFAIK.

luminous · Post by **luminous** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:38 am

Yeah £10 for silence is a very small price to pay. How many hundreds have people at this site spent to get "the right stuff".

Ned Slider · Post by **Ned Slider** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:38 am

Putz wrote:7k80 is a 2.5" form-factor drive (ie. laptop-size), as opposed to traditional 3.5" drives like the 7k250. Noise-related information on these new Hitachis is still very limited, AFAIK.

I don't think it is, it's listed as a 3.5" drive:

http://www.simply.co.uk/productinformat ... /index.htm

And it is afterall a deskstar model according to Hitachi.

Ned

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:53 am

The only difference appears to be that the 7k80 weighs a little less and draws a little less power than the 7k250. This is probably because the 7k80 was designed to only be 80GB max. The Hitachi naming scheme appears to be [Rotational Speed in kRPM][max # of GB]
7k80
7k250

Ned Slider · Post by **Ned Slider** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 12:54 pm

sthayashi wrote:The only difference appears to be that the 7k80 weighs a little less and draws a little less power than the 7k250. This is probably because the 7k80 was designed to only be 80GB max. The Hitachi naming scheme appears to be [Rotational Speed in kRPM][max # of GB]
7k80
7k250

That's about what I thought. They seem to have dropped the lower capacity (<80GB) drives from the 7K250 range and introduced a new naming scheme (7K80) for the 40 and 80GB models.

Ned

cnst · Post by **cnst** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 8:00 pm

AFAIK, the drives were the same (if you look at datasheets at hitachigst.com).

Right now, however, Hitachi seems to have replaced the ATA and SATA controllers on 7K80 without actually updating anything on the platter side, i.e. the drives have the same speed as they had before, but from January 2005 they have support for ATA133 and SATA300 respectfully. I might as well be wrong, but this is what it looks like if you compare the datasheets.

Could anyone compare if 7K250 and 7K80 actually sound different?

cmcquistion · Post by **cmcquistion** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 5:13 am

The 7K80, according to Newegg is SATA II, as opposed to SATA 150, as the 7K250 is. This means that the interface speed is 300 MB/s and not 150 MB/s. In real-world performance, this makes little difference because sustained throughput never comes close to 100 MB/s even, but newer motherboards will have SATA II controllers, so this drive will be able to run at the highest speed supported by the controller.

SATA II drives are backwards compatible with SATA 150 controllers, by the way. I believe the opposite is true, also. I believe you can run a SATA 150 drive on a SATA II controller.

cnst · Post by **cnst** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 8:18 am

cmcquistion, thank you for reiterating the information that was originally stated in my own reply. :-)