Seagate to stop making 7200 RPM drives for notebooks

[Redaktion]

In an apparent effort to promote solid state and hybrid drives for notebooks, Seagate plans to cease production of 2.5-inch 7,200 RPM hard disc drives.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Seagate-to-stop-making-7200-RPM-drives-for-notebooks.89211.0.html

[Yup]

Good choice.

If you want a fast disk, then you have to look for a ssd. If you want large storage, a 5,400rpm hdd is enough. Also, the heat generated by 7,200rpm hdd is a problem.

[danwat1234]

I think that many in the enthusiast community don't fully understand why they are beginning to just use 5400RPM mechanicals for their mobile SSHDs rather than 7200RPM.

It is opposite to their policy of desktop drives, where I believe they no longer make 5400/5900RPM desktop drives but just 7200RPM drives.
This was because they think 5400RPM drives waste time (less productivity) and don't save that much power and they are exactly right.
Why not make the same policy for laptop drives? Power consumption isn't an issue, maybe 1 watt more. I know hybrid drives are a bit different but they still benefit from fast mechanicals since it's only 8GB of flash and doesn't cache writes (yet). 7200RPM makes it less likely that the user will encounter a sharp drop in performance when the data the user wants isn't available on the cache or if the user is installing a lot of updates or a big piece of software. 7200RPM ensures a smoother overall experience.

2 reasons why I think Seagate has gone this way is because of cost of manufacturing and also to allow for slightly larger capacities since head technology is often holding back capacities (I think). But, Hitachi has a 7200RPM 1TB laptop drive (500GB/platter) so the only real reason I can see is cost.
7200RPM + flash memory FTW. 5400RPM, no thanks.

True that 7200RPM only give you maybe 20% more sequential transfer rates but can give you towards 50% better random IO performance.

[Rico]

Why not make the same policy for laptop drives? Power consumption isn't an issue, maybe 1 watt more.

Since when is power consumption NOT an issue in notebooks ? (mobile usage)
and 1W would be a 10% increase in my notebook (office style usage).

Anyhoo, the main point why some of us prefer 5400rpm is not just the power consumption, but the silence, and less annoying vibrations. Not sure, but the 5400rpm may also have advantages in the heat management.