Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 500GB SATA-II Hard Drive

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The Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 500GB SATA-II hard drive raises the bar for those who subscribe to the theory that bigger is better. When it comes to hard drives; more speed, more capacity, and more cache memory is always a good thing. This is the first drive to come across our test bench with SATA300 speed, and it provides the largest capacity (500GB) and most cache memory (16MB) that we have seen to date. Browse around... 500GB and 16MB are currently the best you will find in an internal hard drive, in these respective categories.

The performance in benchmarks was impressive. When used in SATA150 mode, the 7K500 managed to score better than the competition in just about every phase of testing. Enabling SATA300 mode ramped up the performance slightly in most tests, and the burst speed reported in HD Tach was quite impressive as it popped up to 223 MB/s! Overall, I was expecting higher scores across the board, but the testing turned into an educational experience for me, as I learned exactly what the test system and SATA300 could do for me.

Pros:

• Incredible capacity
• Fast in SATA150 mode, blazing fast in SATA300 mode
• 16 MB of cache memory provides a nice performance boost

Cons:

• Runs a bit warmer than other drives
• Does it have a three year warranty or not?
• Price and availability
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Read More/Source: Big Bruin