m11x hard drive question

Hi all,

I just ordered the m11xr1 and it comes with the 160gb 5400rpm hdd. I think i want to upgrade it to a little bigger and a little faster...

are those hybrid drives highly recommended? i think they are the momentus xt...

or should i just get a normal 7200rpm drive?

Thanks,
Dan

 

no one has any opinions?

should i get just a 7200rpm or spend a little extra and get the hybrid?

 

The momentus xt is a good drive. I use it, many other people do as well. There are countless topics on this subject. I would suggest that you use the search function.

 

it comes down to preference and how much money you want to spend. personally, i would stay away from the 5400RPM drive because it will boot slower, write slower, read slower, and load programs noticeably slower than a 7200RPM drive.

a full SSD has its pros and cons (price being a huge con). the 7200RPM 250GB WD scorpio in my M11x is plenty fast and responsive enough, in conjunction with 4GB of RAM. it boots in about 60 seconds, comes out of standby in ~20 seconds, and overall, it's pretty snappy. given that i spent $649 on the whole laptop, i don't really feel like shelling out $150-300 on a hybrid or SSD for a performance increase of a few seconds. to other people, booting in 25 seconds from a cold start is totally worth it. "you can't miss what you never had" rings true here.

for me, i don't mind hitting the power button, and while waiting the extra 40 seconds: (1) uncoiling my mouse, (2) uncoiling my headphones, (3) getting my mouse pad out of my bag, (4) thinking of better ways of spending $300 that i didn't spend on an SSD.

that's just me though. others will chime in, i'm sure. if SSD prices dropped to the point that ~256 GB costs $125-150, then maybe i'd consider it, but right now, those drives are prohibitively expensive. on top of that, i'm not willing to go with only ~128 GB when games can take up 8-10 GB each.

 

SSDs are expensive...the benefit is more than just in boot times but also in general Windows/application use - everything is so much more responsive. I've found you won't really notice the difference much in game loading times over a good HD.

The problem with SSDs (once you get over the cost and capacity - but that's a personal judgement) is that once you've got one, you'll want them in all your machines.

Remember the old 5,400 drives in laptops compared to modern 7,200 or even 10,000 drives? The closest comparison I can make is it's the same sort of difference when going from a good 7,200 to an SSD.

I've not tried hybrids, because I jumped on the SSD wagon long before they were out.

 

If you want things to load FAST, then you'll want to check out SSD's. They are significantly faster than any mechanical HDD you can buy.

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The sacrifices you make for the nosebleedingly-fast speed is price and capacity. SSD's are more expensive than mechanical hard drives, and have lower capacity.

Most people get around the capacity issue by storing their non-critical data on an external USB hard drive, where space is cheap and plentiful. The truth is that there is a big difference between the content that you NEED to have on your laptop (OS, apps, games, etc), and content than is nice-to-have on your laptop (do you really need EVERY single MP3, digital photo, or ripped DVD with you at all times?)

If you are willing to deal with the inconvenience of moving data around between SSD + external HDD so that your SSD contains only your most important or frequently used content, then you'll be able to take advantage of SSD speeds that you can't find anywhere else.