5400 v 7200 rpm hard drive

is there a big difference in loading times?

is it worth buying a 7200rpm HDD?
as dell uk dont provide any in the m1530

 

There is a difference, but it's not big. If you're in the UK, it's probably a better deal just to buy the UK 5400 version vs. importing a 7200.

 

I wouldn't do it. There is a noticeable difference in loading times, but keep in mind you're also losing battery life and adding heat. If you get the 5400 rpm drive and it's truly unbearable, then upgrade, otherwise, I'd keep it how it is. 5400 is standard for a laptop, especially of the pretty decent sizes in dells.

 

A 7200 really improves loading times a lot. that said, you could get a 320 GB 5400 drive and that would probably equal the performance of a 200 or even 250 GB 7200 drive.

Also, don't get a new HDD from Dell, because they charge way too much.

 

The best choice at the moment is the 320/5400 drive.
As fast as a 200/7200rpm, 60% more space, better battery life and less heat generation.

 

Is it really as fast as the 7200? Also what brand would you suggest, I heard that the samsung drives are not very good.

 

Can one of the admin's sticky the whole 5400-v-7200 question, if its not done already.

This seems to come up every week!

Cheers,
72oo

 

7200 ones produce alot of heat and yes 320/5400 is equivalent to a 200/7200
and if u want u can replace the hard drive ur self! and samsung drives are not bad!

 

This is good to know as I am looking to install a second drive in my 1730 notebook I only have a 120gb 7200 rpm. Will I run into any issues with one drive that is 5400rpm and a 7200 rpm drive?

 

no if u install it properly u wont have any problems not that i know of!

 

No, but there's not much of a point because for the most part you'll be copying files between the two drives at which point your 5400rpm drive can't read or write faster than at 5400rpm speeds, rendering your 7200rpm drive somewhat...useless.

 

My battery life is just fine with the 7,200 rpm drive.
And it is considerably faster... but if you've never had one, you'd not know the difference anyway.

 

That's true. I have never used a 7200 laptop drive, only 5400 ones.
My desktop uses a 7200 though and it's stellar fast compared to the laptop one...
But my desktop generates less heat and meets no battery life restrictions

 

I'm not at all trying to say that the battery life is substantially different, but there is a difference =\. Then again, it depends what drive you get. The average 5400rpm drive versus another 7200rpm drive will most likely use less power. However, you can find 7200rpm drives that are more power efficient, using either the same as or less than 5400rpm drives. Or so I hear.

 

well, dell is sending me a 320gb 5400rpm, so il be ok i guess, might upgrade ina year or so when 7200 drives are larger and cheaper as upgradeing HDD is easy

 

If I do get the 5400 rpm bigger drive would you use the smaller 7200rpm drive to load windows and to boot up and the 320gb 5400 rpm drive to store pics, music etc? I havent' seen a 7200 rpm drive that is larger than 200gb and as it is they are usually expensive, the 200gb 7200rpm drive that I have seen in canada is still around $160.00 while you can get a 320gb 5400rpm drive for around $140.00

 

Yea. Boot windows off of the 7200rpm. 5400rpm is great for music and videos because it's plenty fast enough if you're only going to be accessing one file every couple of minutes. You'll notice a difference booting on a 7200rpm with the amount of files it has to read and load.

 

Which brand is the most reliable, Seagate momentus, western digital 3200bevt or a hitachi drive? Are there any to stay away from?

 

the most reliable one is the one you don't drop on the floor! Will kill any if you're unlucky, or not if you are lucky. However, given the choice i'd go for seagate or maxtor, because... you can download a copy of acronis from their website for free that only works with their brand hd's, and that is a great piece of software. It is also cheap tho, so if another brand is cheaper, you could just buy it if you wanted. All things being equal though, i'd go for western digital, I like their raptors It really does come down to so little variation, you could decide on colour and it would be a valid reason! (red wunz go fastaa)

Nox

 

Am I missing something obvious or why is everyone comparing 320/5.4k and 200/7.2k? My next upgrade is 320/7.2k, how does that compare with a similar capacity one with 5.4krpm..?

 

Price. Of course, with a 320/7.2k you're going to get the same storage space and a faster drive. Not much else to say.

 

I would love to have the 320gb 7200rpm drive but I haven't been able to find one and I am sure that it is very expensive so what I was going to do for now was buy the 320gb 5400rpm drive to use as a second drive in my notebook and when the 7200rpm drives are more reasonable to buy I will upgrade then.

 

Go with the Western digital 320GB Scorpio drive. It's only 5,400 RPM but faster then some desktop 7200 RPM drives. I put one in my XPS 1210 last week and this drive is extremely fast.

 

5400 PRM!! You can then get almost 5 hours out of your laptop.

 

I plan to pay 116€ for a 320gb Seagate Momentus 7200.3 (w/ GFO), I don't think that's too bad. That's about the average price for one in Finland as well.