Test notes
We'll be comparing the performance of Hitachi's Travelstar 5K100 and 7K100 with that of Seagate's Momentus 5400.2 and 7200.1. We've also thrown in a 7,200-RPM 3.5" desktop drive for reference, although it's obviously not in the same league as the mobile drives. Still, it will be interesting to see how its performance compares across a wide range of applications, as well as in terms of noise levels and power consumption.

These drives differ when it comes to external transfer rates, spindle speeds, platter densities, and capacity, all of which can have an impact on performance. Keep in mind the following differences as we move through our benchmarks:

  Max external transfer rate Spindle speed Cache size Platter size Capacity Native Command Queuing? Price
Barracuda 7200.9300MB/s7,200RPM8MB160GB160GBYes
Momentus 5400.2150MB/s5,400RPM8MB60GB120GBYes
Momentus 7200.1150MB/s7,200RPM8MB50GB100GBYes
Travelstar 5K100150MB/s5,400RPM8MB40GB80GBYes
Travelstar 7K100150MB/s7,200RPM8MB50GB100GBYes

On the 7,200-RPM front, the Hitachi and Seagate drives should be pretty comparable, as they share the same platter size and similar pricing. Things aren't as pretty among our 5,400-RPM drives, though. Hitachi wasn't able to get us its highest capacity 100GB Travelstar 5K100, so an 80GB drive has to stand in its place. The 80GB drive uses lower capacity 40GB platters that will inevitably have slower transfer rates, especially when compared with the Momentus 5400.2's 60GB platters. Keep that in mind if you see the Momentus 5400.2 running away from the Travelstar 5K100. Also keep in mind the rather large difference in price between those two drives.

This comparison focuses on 2.5" drive performance, so we've only included one desktop-class 3.5" drive for reference. However, all testing was conducted on the same platform as our 3.5" hard drive reviews, so you can compare the performance of our mobile drives with a wider range of 3.5" drives by flipping back to our recent Western Digital Raptor X review.

Our testing methods
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged, using the following test system.

Processor Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4GHz
System bus800MHz (200MHz quad-pumped)
Motherboard Asus P5WD2 Premium
Bios revision0422
North bridgeIntel 955X MCH
South bridgeIntel ICH7R
Chipset driversChipset 7.2.1.1003
AHCI/RAID 5.1.0.1022
Memory size1GB (2 DIMMs)
Memory typeMicron DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
CAS latency (CL)3
RAS to CAS delay (tRCD)3
RAS precharge (tRP)3
Cycle time (tRAS)8
Audio codecALC882D
Graphics Radeon X700 Pro 256MB with CATALYST 5.7 drivers
Hard drives Hitachi Travelstar 5K100 80GB SATA
Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 100GB SATA
Seagate Momentus 5400.2 120GB SATA
 Seagate Momentus 7200.1 100GB SATA
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ 160GB SATA
OS Windows XP Professional
OS updatesService Pack 2

Our test system was powered by OCZ PowerStream power supply units. The PowerStream was one of our Editor's Choice winners in our last PSU round-up.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1280x1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.