fast 2.5" disks for laptop

[xray]

The Tech Report http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q1/mobile-hdds/index.x?pg=2

tested fast 2.5 inch 7200 tpm Serial ATA disks used in laptop computers. The conclusion is that the small disks run fast still not to hot and use less power than the big disks. Fast are the Seagate's Momentus 7200.1 models, as well as Hitachi's Travelstar7K100. Read it your self, if you need to unload he P2 cards in a fast way.

[JMLang]

The only problem is that those are SATA drives, and I think most laptops being sold are still PATA (and certainly the laptops most people already have and may be thinking about upgrading are PATA), as well as most external enclosures. PATA's still so common for that size they don't even specify here: http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=AA30310

You may also want to keep an eye out for the new Seagate (I believe, maybe it's Hitachi) 160GB that uses perpendicular recording. Don't know what RPM it is, but that aerial density should be a nice boost in itself, so if they do a 7200RPM version it'll be the biggest and fastest out there. Don't know when it actually ships though.