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.