Which 7200 rpm 2.5 drive is better?

[tman2damax11]

My friend has a laptop that's his only system and is quite slow, but he needs it for his work. It originally came with a 250gb 5400 rpm drive and it's the main bottleneck in the system. He needs much more space as he's currently juggling 2 external 250gb drives and a few flash drives to store his project files. So which ones of these drives would be the best bet?

• WD Black 1tb
• HGST Travelstar 1tb

They come in around the same price and WD even owns HGST, but despite the WD drive being marketed as faster according to passmark the HGST drive is faster. I've also seen in one discussion that the WD is dual platter whereas the HGST is single which makes it faster and more reliable, is this true? Keep in mind the budget for this upgrade is only ~$60. Thanks for any input!

[hconverse02]

The cheaper one  How much space does he actually need if he could go for a 250gb ssd instead

[Saieshan Dadi]

I'd take the WD but personally I've always been a bit more partial to Seagate with storage so if you could find a Seagate 1TB i'd say take that.

 

My rambling aside you will probably not notice any small performance differences between the two drives above

[dizmo]

I'd go with the WD Black. Should have a longer warranty.

2 minutes ago, Saieshan Dadi said:

I'd take the WD but personally I've always been a bit more partial to Seagate with storage so if you could find a Seagate 1TB i'd say take that.

 

My rambling aside you will probably not notice any small performance differences between the two drives above

You're the first person I've ever heard say that

[ProjectBox153]

Do you really need a WD Black? Why not use a small SSD and a 2TB 5400RPM HDD? That'd be loads faster.

[Saieshan Dadi]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

I'd go with the WD Black. Should have a longer warranty.

You're the first person I've ever heard say that

I like my Seagate drives. Been using Seagate for close to 12 years now

[dizmo]

9 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

Do you really need a WD Black? Why not use a small SSD and a 2TB 5400RPM HDD? That'd be loads faster.

It's a laptop.

[ProjectBox153]

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

It's a laptop.

And?

[dizmo]

5 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

And?

Likely doesn't have that kind of expansion.
Also, how do you plan to fit that option into a $60 budget?

[ProjectBox153]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Likely doesn't have that kind of expansion.
Also, how do you plan to fit that option into a $60 budget?

It may not fit into the budget, but it would be better for money. You can remove the optical drive and use an adapter for another drive.

[dizmo]

8 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

It may not fit into the budget, but it would be better for money. You can remove the optical drive and use an adapter for another drive.

Provided it has an optical drive. You can always find better ways to accomplish something with a larger budget.

It doesn't matter though, when the budget isn't there.

[seagate_surfer]

Another option for getting a touch of speed increase in a laptop would be the 2.5" FireCuda. It is an SSHD (Solid-State Hybrid Drive) which can be ideal for situations like this where you want more performance but may not have the space/budget for both an SSD and HDD. 1TB should fit in your budget, 2TB would probably be a little over.