Internal Hard Drives

The Bottom Line: The inexpensive price of the Patriot Warp V.2 helps it stand out among solid-state hard drives, but its performance shows few significant benefits over normal hard disks. You'd be better off buying a fast 7,200rpm laptop hard drive or selling your firstborn to invest in the Intel X-25M SSD.

Specs: 128 GB, Serial ATA-300, 2.5"

The Bottom Line: Intel's X-25M solid-state hard drive enjoys several advantages over both spinning disk drives as well as other SSDs, including improvements to data throughput, boot time, and laptop battery life. Its one drawback is that it's pricier than even its other solid-state competition, but if you can forget about its cost, this is by far the fastest data drive available.

Specs: 80 GB, Serial ATA-300, 2.5"

The Bottom Line: The Maxtor Ultra 7200 series 200GB internal hard drive upgrade offers speedy, expansive storage for gaming and digital audio and video, but it comes at a cost.

Specs: 200 GB, ATA-133, Internal, 3.5", 8 MB, 9.4 ms, 7200 rpm

The Bottom Line: It isn't cheap, but Western Digital's Caviar Special Edition 250GB is the complete kit, with loads of capacity, excellent performance, and sterling service and support.

Specs: 250 GB, DMA/ATA-133 (Ultra) Fast Drives, Internal, 3.5" x 1/3H, 8 MB, 8.9 ms, 7200 rpm

The Bottom Line: The Barracuda ATA IV is an exceptionally quiet, large-capacity hard drive at a nice price, but it's too slow. Choose it for ambience, not speed.

Specs: 80 GB, ATA-100, Internal, 3.5" x 1/3H, 2 MB, 9.5 ms, 7200 rpm

The Bottom Line: With speed and space galore, the IBM is an excellent way to spend your high-capacity, high-performance disk dollars.

Specs: 120 GB, ATA-100, Internal, 3.5" x 1/3H, 2 MB, 8.5 ms, 7200 rpm

The Bottom Line: The D540X is the highest-capacity hard drive on the market today, but the 7,200rpm competition is faster.

Specs: 160 GB, ATA-133, Internal, 3.5" x 1/3H, 2 MB, 12 ms, 5400 rpm

The Bottom Line: This high-volume drive offers outstanding sustained throughput and Western Digital's reputation for excellence and reliability.

Specs: 120 GB, ATA-100, Internal, 3.5" x 1/3H, 8 MB, 8.9 ms, 7200 rpm

The Bottom Line: The fastest high-capacity, internal hard drive we've tested to date. If top performance is the object of your desire, the 75GXP is well worth the slight premium.

Specs: 75 GB, ATA-100, Internal, 3.5" x 1/3H, 2 MB, 8.5 ms, 7200 rpm

The Bottom Line: If you require massive amounts of storage, this drive is a good choice.

Specs: 80 GB, ATA-100, Internal, 3.5" x 1/3H, 2 MB, 9 ms, 5400 rpm