Seagate 100GB Momentus 7200.1 PATA Notebook Hard Drive

The petite size of the Seagate 100GB Momentus 7200.1 PATA hard drive certainly belies its large capacity. Its compact 2.5" form factor packs in 100GB of storage space!

That may not be a lot when compared to desktop hard drives, but those 3.5" drives are significantly larger, heavier and more power-hungry. As far as notebooks are concerned, this drive is a monster in disguise!

The large capacity is probably due to the higher areal density of its platters, although the integration of STMicroelectronics' Smooth Drive technology may have allowed them to pack more bits into the limited surface area of the small platters. Still, the areal density of the Momentus 7200.1's platters are not as high as that of the Momentus 5400.2 hard drive we reviewed earlier.

The lower areal density not only reduced the Momentus 7200.1's capacity, it could also reduce its internal transfer rate. But as our test results have shown, the higher spindle speed allowed the Momentus 7200.1 to beat even the Momentus 5400.2's transfer rate by 8 to 18%. Needless to say, it totally trashed the 4200 RPM Fujitsu hard drive.

The Seagate Momentus 7200.1 hard drive also comes with a massive 8MB SDRAM buffer. Such a large buffer is usually found only in high-end desktop drives. Thanks to this large buffer, it has an astounding burst transfer performance of 87.5MB/s! That is over 2.2X faster than that of the Fujitsu MHT2040AT hard drive!

Thanks to its higher areal density and faster spindle speed, the Momentus 7200.1 boasts a much higher read speed than both the Momentus 5400.2 and the Fujitsu MHT2040AT hard drive. In fact, it's over 67% faster than the Fujitsu drive and 13.8% faster than the Momentus 5400.2! There's definitely a significant performance advantage in switching from a slow 4200 RPM hard drive to the Momentus 7200.1.

In addition, it's good to know that this hard drive comes with a magnificent 5-year limited warranty! While this does not guarantee that this hard drive won't quit on you in the next five years, it does show the amount of confidence Seagate has in the reliability of this model.

As far as notebook hard drives go, the Seagate Momentus 7200.1 has certainly impressed us with its size, performance and quiet operation. We love it so much we feel it deserves our Reviewer's Choice Award! Congratulations, Seagate!

For more details, read our Comprehensive Review !

MSRP

• NA

Lowest PriceGrabber Price

Review

• Comprehensive Review

Model

• ST910021A

Formatted Capacity

• 100 GB

Bytes Per Sector

• 512 bytes

Sectors Per Track

• 63

Cylinders

• 16,383

Platters

• 2

Read/Write Heads

• 4

Recording Method

• RLL 0, 11

Spindle Speed

• 7,200 RPM

Average Latency

• 4.2 msec.

Average Seek

• 10.5 msec.

Maximum Internal Data Transfer Rate

• 45.8 MB/s

Maximum I/O Data Transfer Rate

• 100 MB/s

Interface

• Ultra ATA 100

Cache Buffer

• 8 MB SDRAM

Maximum Height

• 9.5 mm
• 0.374 inches

Maximum Width

• 69.85 mm
• 2.75 inches

Maximum Length

• 100.2 mm
• 3.945 inches

Maximum Weight

• 115 g
• 0.254 lb

Typical Startup Current @ 5V (peak)

• 1.1 A

Seek Power (Typical)

• 2.6 W

Operating Power (Typical)

• 2.2 W

Idle Mode (Typical)

• 1.3 W

Standby Mode (Typical)

• 0.26 W

Ambient Temperature

• 5 °C to 55 °C (Operating)
• -40 °C to 70 °C (Non-Operating)

Maximum Operating Shock
(@ 2 msec.)

• 250 G

Maximum Non-Operating Shock
(@ 1 msec.)

• 900 G

Idle Drive Acoustics

• 2.5 bels (Typical)

Performance Seek Drive Acoustics

• 2.9 bels (Typical)

Head Rest Method

• QuietStep^TM Ramp Load

Load/Unload Cycles

• 600,000 Cycles

Non-Recoverable Read Errors

• 1 error per 10¹⁴ bits read

Warranty

• 5 Years Limited Warranty