StorageReview: 2005 Notebook Drive Roundup

StorageReview.com has just published their 2005 Notebook Drive Roundup.

To clarify the type of drives they are reviewing, since in the ultraportable class we can run into non-standard notebook drives, here are the specs:

For our purposes, a “notebook-class hard drive” is one featuring a 2.8×4.0x0.4 inch form factor that incorporates 2.5″ platters. These drives have traditionally featured a parallel ATA interface arrayed with a 5 volt power line in a 22×2 pin grid.

They looked at drives from Fujitsu, Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate, and Western Digital. Among the factors considered were speed, transfer times, heat, noise, and power consumption. Worth a read if you are looking at upgrading your laptop.