5400rpm or 7200rpm

Getting vostro 1400 (c2d t7300, 2gb, 8400m gs) What kind of performance increase would i expect between the 160gb 5400rpm and 160gb 7200rpm harddrives? Is it worth paying for the upgrade in speeds for $105? I will play WoW and CS:S and maybe a new game or 2 if it can handle it.

 

5400 vs 7200 hardly shows any improvement in gaming
you'll want faster HDspeeds when you're doing real time video encoding/recording or other heavy HDrelated stuff

a 5400 also consumes less power and doesn't get as hot

 

I think you wont notice that much difference worth $105 in the upgrade.... And like Kwakkel said only tasks involoving serious HDD usage like volume transfers, video encoding stuff you would notice the difference that too only to a minor extent....

 

While you won't seen any noticeable difference while running any programs, you will see a very noticeable difference while loading programs. If you hate long load times, then the 7200 RPM HD may very well be worth the money to you.

 

Save your money. The 7200 RPM hard disk will be a little faster in loading all around, but I don't think it's worth over a hundred dollars. If your the person who needs every last second, it may be a good options, however.

Remember, there will be no performance change as far as FPS, graphics, etc go; only in how fast things like levels and programs load.

 

20 MB per second more approximatelly i heard, if true then that is a signifacant difference.

 

20MB/s WHAT?
faster throughput?
you'll only notice that when moving large files over a gigabit network between 2 PCs

R/W access?
also, only noticable with large files or a/v en/decoding or recording

you'll have (virtually) no gain (certainly not noticable) when you're DLing, saving a word-document, accessing a webpage, playing a game
even loading a lvl or a savegame will, imo, barely show a difference in 5400 vs 7200
even if there is a 1 second difference, will you be able to tell? and if you can tell, can you say for sure it's the HD? and not the AV that decided to scan something which caused lag?

 

I have the 7200 rpm Hitachi 200MB drive in my XPS 1330.... I get an average transfer speed of 53 MB/sec compared to 30+ MB/sec with 5400 rpm drive...

The drive is faster than my 2 year old 7200 rpm desktop drive..

 

you have both drives for your 1330?
or are you comparing different systems?

biggest question is: WHEN do you notice that your drive is faster? (not including benchmarks)

 

wow, ok thanks for the replies. No point in me wasting 105 dollars on something that will not show much improvement, I guess I can wait 5 more seconds for my game to load or transfer

 

boot up, loading programs, file transfers.

upgrade the HD yourself, buy the HD from Dell and sell the 120GB, if you do that the upgrade should cost you $50

 

Save that money cheap SSD's with increased write performance will be available next year, the death bell is ringing on the mechanical hard drive.

 

Also on another note toshiba just announced a 320GB 2.5" hard drive which will only send hard drive prices spiraling down further.

 

lol that is un-noticeable change..i rather have more space than 2 seconds of load time..trust me it aint worth the money..invest in more important stuff like ram, gpu, processor

regards

 

"Cheap" or "Cheaper"? I'd imagine they'd go from ludicrously expensive to just very expensive. Also, probably they'll increase in size at the same price rather than drop in price.

 

7200rpm drive for the win

 

Buy the 7200 rpm if you want that "desktop-like" feel on your laptop... Everything is just super quick and responsive...

This comes from using both 4200 rpm and 5400 rpm laptop computers, and now my 7200 rpm

Although, to be fair, the jump from 4200 -> 5400 is much larger than 5400 -> 7200...