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In the Forums... |
Posted: December 15th, 2002
What IBM and Toshiba have set out to do here is to provide equally in both drive performance and value. Due to the natural fact that two things can never be entirely the same, this contest ends with a winner and a runner up. Both drives performed well offering your laptop the kind of boost you would hope for when upgrading from a 4200rpm unit and in this aspect the Toshiba managed to establish itself as the leader with an overall ~10% gain over the IBM. To achieve this first prize it did however give out more noise making it the slightly more audible of the two. The MK4018GAX does however fight back with a bigger healthy sized 16MB buffer, twice that of the IBM and certainly a feature that is worth every penny. Neither drives produced heat levels that should pose concerns even when left running for extended periods of time. Overall until a new product proves otherwise the Toshiba GAX series appears to be the fastest notebook hard drive currently in the public domain, this news looks to remain up to date for at least several more months to come. Industry known IBM is meanwhile also well aware of market demand and has its own plans for faster drives for the notebook performance market, included in these are new 7200rpm units, a first for mobile computers. Toshiba is likely to respond to such a thread refusing to let IBM dent into its section of cake but at the time of writing we are not in know of what to expect let alone even dream about 7200rpm units becoming more widespread. For now at least it is a duel between a GNX and a GAX, this time Toshiba comes out top thanks to best overall speed (~10% faster than the IBM GNX) and the highest capacities available (60GB Vs 40GB for IBM GNX) within this series. The winner is victorious but not by a wide margin and it is still safe to buy the IBM Travelstar as a silver prize victor. Be it one or the other value for money mantains similarity with Toshiba costing around £139.99 (~$210), and the IBM costing £149 (~$225) from all good online retailers. Toshiba MK4018GAX: Pro's - Currently the fastest notebook HDD available - Massive 16MB buffer boosting overall performance - Available upto 60GB capacities - Does not run hot after hours of use Con's - Slightly noisier than average Overall 95% (Editor's choice) IBM IC25N040ATCS05: Pro's - Great all-round performance - 8MB buffer boosting overall performance - Does not run hot after hours of use - Very quiet when in use Con's - Only available upto 40GB capacities Overall 90% (Safe buy) |
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