My system specs: Gigabyte GA-7VT600-PL (Rev 1.0) Chipset: North - VIA KT600, South - VIA VT8237, AMD Athlon XP 2800+ @ 2.09GHZ, 1GB DDR Ram, Windows XP Pro SP2. The chipset is only capable of SATA-I and no NCQ.
I have about $110 CAN to spend on a new HDD and was going to drop my 2 PATA drives in favor of a single SATA drive. The drive of interest: 160GB Seagate SATA-I 7200.7 (Model ST3160827AS) for about $108CAN. This drive I beleive came out around last year. A newer drive from Seagate: 160GB Seagate SATA-II 7200.9 (Model: ST3160812AS) has been released and is available for about the same price as the 7200.7 series. What concerns me in deciding between the two drives is the Average Seek Time.
According to Seagate, the 7200.9 drive has a Seek Time of 11ms (other places I read 12ms), whereas the older 7200.7 series has a time of 8.5ms. With such a seek time wouldnt this mean the newer 7200.9 drive is actually slower than the older 7200.7?
Im unable to determine the density of the drives for the two 160GB models but lets assume the 7200.9 has a greater denity. Wouldnt this just mean that for standard benchmarks the 7200.9 would have higher numbers for average data transfer rate but when it comes down to ACTUAL usage of the drive where files are created/deleted producing endless fragmentations wouldnt the 7200.9 drive fall flat of the performance of the older 7200.7 which has a smaller seek time?
Does anyone know whether the 160GB 7200.9 drive does in fact have a higher density than the 7200.7? Besides the SATA-II.5 interface upgrade what exactly is so special about the newer Seagate 160GB 7200.9 drive?
Plenty of cache and a half-terabyte top capacity are nice, but the 7200.9's most impressive feature may be its ultra-dense 160GB platters, which have a much higher areal density than platters offered by other manufacturers.
No reviews that I could find yet, but the Platter Areal Density is up from the 7200.8 @133 GB per Platter and the 7200.7's 100 GB per Platter.
8 series has better seek times then 9 series, as far as which is faster, I think results a re a mix bag, but honestly nothing you would really notice in real life.
To read more on the subject check the latest hard drive round up at Tomshardware.
Last edited by F_A_L_C_O_N; October 23rd, 2005 at 09:21 PM.
Seagate 7200.9 vs 7200.7 HDD - Seek Time Matter?
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