laptop hard drives

[chesterfield]

helllo all, just a quick question. i currently have a fairly new HP laptop w/1.73 Centrino Pentium M processor and 2 gig of ram.. it came stock with a 100 gig, 4200rpm hard drive. i recently put in a 100 gig hitachi, 5400 rpm, 8 meg cache.

question is, how much more performance would i get out of a 100 gig hard drive, but, 7200rpm w/8 meg cache??????

also, battery life is not an issue as it is always plugged in....

thanks---dave

[TBoneit]

Think about it, how much of a bump did you get going from 4200 to 5400? Was it worth it.

How much more performance you'll get depends on what you do. Windows will start slightly faster. CPU speed is your main limit in encoding video for example. Won't help burning a DVD or ripping a DVD for example. The DVD drive is the limit there. Capture video? most likely no help there either. Copy files from one folder to another? a little help. Problem there is same physical drive. Laptop = room for one physical drive. Partitions do not help with that limitation. Use a external USB2 drive? already has limit from the USB2 speed that is more or less around an equivilent of ATA 55 speed whereas most desktop drives are ATA100 or ATA133.

One other thing 7200 rpm drive will most likely run hotter and add more heat to the laptop.

[GMaq]

chesterfield,
Although I can't give you exact specs, I know that you will see the greatest benefit going from 4200 to 5400, I recently purchased a Dell Laptop and decided to get a SATA 7200RPM Drive instead of the stock 5400, According to the Dell website there was only a 1 millisecond benefit (12 vs 13) in average seek time going to 7200 vs. 5400. These seek times are still slower than a 3.5" regular HDD so obviously RPM is not the only issue. I will say that this SATA 7200 RPM drive on my laptop shows no (noticeable) difference in performance over the ATA 100 7200 RPM drive I was using in my former desktop. It is a real buyer beware time to buy laptops now and I find many of the manufacturers are selling refurbs with "100 Gig" hard drives but you have to do some homework to find out what RPM they are.

[chesterfield]

thanks for all the input. bottom line, i just want to get the most bang for the $$$$$. the stoch HD was a 100 gig 4200, i have since tried a 100 gig 5400 and i do see an increase in speed doing a couple of tasks. newegg.com has the 100 gig 7200 and i am contimplating that......

[Super Warrior]

All that just to go from 4200 to 5400? What,things now load a few seconds faster?

Meh Not worth the effort at all.

[chesterfield]

well, it is not just all that....'cause when i am done, the old HD goes in an external enclosure so i am just trying to make the best purchase. just found a 120 gig notebook drive on newegg for $165!!!!!!

[ROF]

If you're going to be putting the old hard drive into an external anyways, why are you upgrading again? You will not see a significant boost in performance like you did when upping to a 5400. You're money would be better spent on a larger SATA Drive and put that into an external casing.