Fujitsu MHV2120AT: Summation

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Fujitsu MHV2120AT
(120GB 4200RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" HDD)

Summation

Introduction • 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 MHV2120AT 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 MHV2120AT 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 MHV2120AT's heat dissipation was noticeable and welcomed. When comparing the amount of heat generated to the MHV2080AH, the MHV2120AT appeared to be a little cooler. This was probably because of the 4200RPM speed versus the 5400RPM speed of the MHV2080AH.

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 (after testing 2 of the drives so far, I can say this without a doubt). 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. The FDB (Fluid Dynamic Bearing) motor in the MHV2120AT contributes to the silent running, and is doing its job.

HD Tach 3 RW Results

HD Tach's results are pretty much self-explanatory, but there are differences between the MHV2080AH and the MHV2120AT results. I did notice I got about an extra megabyte per second of data flow versus IO Meter (just like the MHV2080AH). And just like the MHV2080AH, the Seek Time (Full Track) was about 19ms, and Fujitsu's own numbers say 22ms, so I wasn't concerned at all. HD Tach did point out the consistency of the drive over a period of time. If you click on the larger versions of the graphs, you will slight deviations from the graphs of the MHV2080AH. The more noticeable figures which stood out, were the burst speed tests. As expected, the 4200RPM is slower. ~18MB/s of the MHV2080AH bursts versus the ~10MB/s bursts of the MHV2120AT.

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.

The MHV2120AT did honorably well during these tests. In many cases, the numbers were very close to the MHV2080AH.

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