Fujitsu MHW2080BH Review

I've always liked Fujitsu harddrives. They were nearly always faster and cheaper than many drives in the same size class, and were also very reliable and fairly quiet. Which is why when I saw this 80GB MHW 2BH model selling at Infonec for $52, I jumped for it immediately along with a Vantec Nexstar CX 2.5" hard drive enclosure, 'cause I needed a new portable external drive.

Here's a spec list:

• 2.5" form factor
• One 80GB Platter
• 8MB Cache
• 5400RPM spindle
• SATA-150 interface
• Ramp-load
• Height: 9.5mm
• 3-year warranty

On par with most drives, besides that platter capacity and SATA interface (more on that later.)

I guess I'll explain Fujitsu's drive model numbering system here:
MH: Mobile HDD
W: Model Series
2: Form Factor (2.5")
080: 80GB
BH: Special

The first letter of the end code means cache size. A = 2MB, B = 8MB. The second letter means the spin speed and/or the type of drive.
AT = Two platter, 4200RPM, 2MB cache
BT = Three platter, 4200RPM, 8MB cache, 12.5mm height
AH = Two platter, 5400RPM, 2MB cache
BH = Two platter, 5400RPM, 8MB cache
BK = Two platter, 7200RPM, with 8MB cache
BJ = Two platter, 7200RPM, with 16MB cache
CJ = Two platter, 7200RPM, with 16MB cache, 256-bit AES

Anyways, the MHW family came in capacities of 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, and 160GB, in IDE and SATA-150 interfaces. It also appears to contain the first 7200RPM 2.5" models from Fujitsu, with several BJ and BK models mixed in.

(Click to enlarge)

The top. Fujitsu used the same drive casing since they adopted ramp-loading a long while ago, and even the really old drives that lack the tech have a similar cover design. And yes, that's my name scrawled in that little space on the right.

(Click to enlarge)

Same goes for the back. We have the usual Fujitsu-branded spindle motor and blue PCB. You can see the SATA power and data connectors facing the camera at the bottom (gold.)
Now the funny thing about my drive is that the manufacture date on it says 2007-12-12, which means it was sitting on Infonec's shelves for a little over a year before I bought it. This made me kinda nervous, but the drive works perfectly fine, so I guess I can't complain.

(Click to enlarge)

The usual.

(Click to enlarge)

Checking the drive health (and power-on hours) before the tests. Everything's fine.

Moving on to the benchmarks. I used this PC to test the drive.

(Click to enlarge)

Pretty average stuff here. Transfer rates start at 49.4MB/s and dropped slowly to end at 19.7MB/s, giving an average data transfer rate of 36.8MB/s. Seek times are usual 5400RPM fair at 17.7ms, with burst rate at 82.5MB/s.

(Click to enlarge)

Moving on to the seek time tests. The MHW2080BH delivers the same results at 512B and 4KB, while rates drop slightly at 64KB and go down even further at 1MB. Still pretty average stuff here, though.

As with most Fujitsu drives, seek noise is low-pitched, with some fairly strong vibration during full-stroke seek (for a notebook drive) and buzzing noises when the head reads or writes data but doesn't move the head can be heard when you stick your ear close to the drive. Head parking is sluggish compared to most notebook drives, and the drive makes a quiet metallic sliding noise when it does it. The spindle's noise consists of a whine that can only be heard with your ear against the spindle motor, otherwise all you hear is air. Not the quietest drive, but the Fujitsu HDDs were never the quietest.

Installation into the Nexstar CX enclosure was straightforward. Just plug the drive into the SATA connector block, then slide the whole thing in and tighten the two screws, and you're done.

(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)

Of course, since I mainly bought this drive for use as a portable drive, speed doesn't really matter all that much (because the USB interface on the Nexstar CX bottlenecks the speeds to a little under 35MB/s.) So for scoring, I guess I'll give this drive a 9/10 in Performance for seek times being on the high side, and a 9.5/10 in Functionality for the average specs and audible seeks. (Hey, I can't give the drive a total 5/5 because of how old it is!)

Performance: 9/10
Functionality: 9.5/10
Total : 9.25/10

(Note: cause this is an older drive, don't count this drive as better than a current WD1200BEVS just cause it got a higher score.)