Fujitsu's MHW2 BJ series of disks: the "world's fastest, biggest, and quietest"

God loves the little children and super fast storage devices. That's why she gave us Uncle Al and the new MHW2 BJ series of 2.5-inch hard disk drives from Fujitsu. The new 2.5-inch, SATA 3.0Gbps HDDs max-out at 160GB, a world's biggest to spin at 7,200rpm. Sure, that pales in comparison to Fujitsu's own 300 gigger, but that chubster trundles along at just 4200rpm. These new 2.5-inchers operate at just 25 decibels when idle but suck a biggie 2.3W when throwing around data at up to 300Mbps. So what's it going to be, lickity quick bits or battery friendly capacity? You have until the end of the May to decide 'cause that's when these new speedsters will appear as an option in your high-performance laptops.

[Via Impress]

[Olivier Posted Mar 6th 2007 9:10AM]

Please excuse my ignorance but I don't think that RPM is the best measure of speed.

Sure it makes snes to compare rotation speed but only amongst similar capacity AND size hard drive. You see as capacity increases WITHOUT increasing physical size, then density increases. It's simple 101 physics.

Let me remind you that reading speed (not necesarily seek though) is a function of RPM and density.

So I do not believe thazt your conlusion about Fujitsu's 300GB HD being slower than this 7200rpm 160GB to be true.

You guys need to let go to this RPM myth, it went the way of the dodo, same as the MHz myth.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 6th 2007 9:27AM]

To add to your comments, greater density not only means higher transfer rates, it means shorter typical seek distances to your data. As drives get bigger they get faster and the data that gets stored on them is spread out less. It's true that faster spin speeds reduce latency and generally increase performance, but when a sufficient gap in capacity exists, much or possibly all of that advantage disappears. Traditional speed tests don't show this because they seek of percentages of the disk. Data layout doesn't work that way.

For me, buying the largest laptop drive available generally makes the most sense. A 160GB 7200rpm drive may be faster than a 200GB 5400rpm one, but I suspect a 250GB 5400rpm would match it, be quieter and easier on the battery, and offer greater utility overall.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 6th 2007 9:32AM]

Why BJ series? That makes me think they're guaranteed to go down on you.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 6th 2007 10:09AM]

Props for the subtle gender reversing God reference.

[AuDioFreaK39 Posted Mar 6th 2007 7:56PM]

Since when is God a she? And whose the goddess of Seagate?

[Andir Posted Mar 7th 2007 12:05AM]

Since when is god anything? Since when is god even tangible? Since when is god even real?