Fujitsu MHV2080AH: Summation

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Fujitsu MHV2080AH
(80GB 5400RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" HDD)

Summation

Introduction • Before The Tests • HD Tach RW 3 (Non-Partioned Results) • HD Tach RW 3 (FAT32 Results)
HD Tach RW 3 (NTFS Results) • IO Meter FAT32 Results • IO Meter NTFS Results • Summation
Conclusion

The Fujitsu MHV2080AH performed quite well in all the tests I administered. The drive remained warm at the most demanding of file transfers, and was significantly cooler when not in such demand. This is probably one of the most important issues of a hard drive. Forget the numbers you see on the net, and try to find reports of how warm (or even hot) the drive was. Chances are, you won't find that many. Why? Because the numbers speak more about the drive than what they should. Having good performance numbers are certainly nice, but the physical condition of the drive during operation, is also important. The MHV2080AH also cooled down rather quickly after rigorous testing. I give part of this reason to the type of enclosure I used the drive with, the macally 250OTG. Not all the acclaim goes to the enclosure however, because I removed the enclosure itself, and just observed the heat from the drive as it was attached to the bare USB2.0 peripheral connection of the 250OTG. The MHV2080AH's heat dissipation was noticeable and welcomed.

Heat is not wanted, and neither is noise. Fujitsu's spindle motor driving method appears to be quieter than previous drives. How do I know? Well, I've installed a few of their 2.5" drives on notebooks in the past, which was why I became very interested in observing Fujitsu's latest products. There is certainly improvement in the latest MHV line of 2.5" hard drives. Low noise is not just an irritating or annoying habit a particular drive has, but also is related to how many parts are rubbing against each other, and to what degree the frictional forces are incrementally damaging the hardware itself. Low noise means lower friction. It's kind of like driving your car, and not hearing any noises which stand out. How many times have you had your car require serious servicing when you heard noises versus not hearing any noises at all. In a quiet surrounding, all you hear are the sounds from the environment around you. The same goes for the MHV2080AH. In fact, my "silent" ball-bearing computer fans seem like tornado winds when compared to the drive's operation. The FDB (Fluid Dynamic Bearing) motor in the MHV2080AH contributes to the silent running, and is doing its job.

HD Tach 3 RW Results

HD Tach's results are pretty much self-explanatory. I did notice I got about an extra megabyte per second of data flow versus IO Meter. The Seek Time (Full Track) was about 19ms, and Fujitsu's own numbers say 22ms, so I wasn't concerned at all. One observation which HD Tach did point out, was how consistent the drive was over a period of time. If you click on the larger versions of the graphs, you will see almost a straight line for reading or writing.

IO Meter Results

The numbers you see of the IO Meter results, may not make sense when you first look at them. Why? Because you probably don't see tests like this. My main concern was testing for reliability and consistency in the tests, at various file sizes and various time lengths. Because of this, you will get various read and write times, which will not reflect a "Super-Duper Cosmically Fast" drive. I performed these tests several times over to not only get a fair reading, but to see how well the drive would perform over a period time in regards to heat dissipation and how that would affect the numbers.

Well, let's get to the Conclusion...