Testing Participants

Fujitsu MHW2 BJ: MHW2160BJ (160GB)

The Fujitsu MHW2 BJ series includes three models with capacities of 80, 120 and 160 gigabytes. The recording density per platter is lower in this series than in the opponent products because the other brands have a maximum storage capacity of up to 200 gigabytes. Fujitsu’s HDDs of this series are all equipped with 16 megabytes of buffer memory and SATA interface. As usual, no information about employed technologies is disclosed by Fujitsu.

The company’s website also describes the MHZ2 BJ series with 7200rpm HDDs up to 320 gigabytes, with a 16MB buffer and a thickness of 9.5 millimeters (i.e. they have no more than two platters inside). These HDDs have not reached us yet.

Hitachi 7K200: HTS722020K9SA00 (200GB)

This series is an evolutionary development of the Hitachi 7K100 line. Most of the technologies have remained the same but the recording density and cache have grown twofold. The maximum storage capacity is now 200GB and the buffer is 16MB large in every model. As for inherited technologies, the series features iridium-magnesium-chromium heads, thermal fly-height control to reduce the error rate, a parking ramp to protect data from shocks, and the power-saving features HiVERT and ABLE. The manufacturer claims the new 7K200 series drives are 22% faster than their predecessors.

As opposed to the opponent brands, Hitachi offers both serial and parallel interfaces. Some users may find the opportunity to upgrade their old PATA drive useful. Of course, we will test a SATA model for this review.