SAMSUNG FlashON HM16HJI 160GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 1.5Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Pros: Much faster than my old drive. Vista boots up in half the time. Makes my notebook much more responsive. Good price too

Cons: Needs more flash memory. No real difference in battery life.

Other Thoughts: Vista is designed to use a hybrid drive and it makes a big difference in performance.

Pros: Very quiet. Cool. Easy to install.

Cons: See no advantage from FlashOn. Appears a little slower than the drive it replaced - also a 5400RPM drive.

Other Thoughts: Vista really doesn't give any indication this drive is being used as a Hybrid drive (ReadyDrive). I've checked the Samsung installation guide and it just says to install it, which I've done without issue. It really is quiet though - I can only hear it when it spins up, as it whines then.

Pros: Good performance for a 5400 rpm drive, HDtune average transfer rate ~40 MB/sec which approaches that of my 7200 rpm 2.5 drive. Nice size disk capacity 160 GB.

Cons: ReadyDrive benefit is subtle at best - no earth shaking benefit. Improvements in real world vista app load, boot, and battery life are not real noticeable in my ASUS 8AJP with 2 gig RAM. I guess I had hoped for more. Perhaps when larger Cache becomes available.

Other Thoughts: Vista driver loads automatic, but you have to go into control panel's advanced power setting and enable hybrid drive for battery and/or AC. Also a separate setting to enable hybrid sleep. I enabled hybrid sleep under battery and you can really hear it do its thing, it sounds like a dentist's drill when it spins up from hybrid sleep.

Pros: 1. Good capacity for price
2. Relatively quick speed vs. previous Toshiba hard drive

Cons: The drive started making clicking noises on the 2nd to 3rd day of use... then it died. I've seen a few other reviews mentioning problems with Samsung Spinpoint.

Pros: Does the hybrid aspect only work with Vista?

What kind of performance benefits a should be expected?

Cons: I wish there was more info.