80 gb vs 120 gb hard drive

I understand Vista eats up quite a bit of space on the hard drive but I'm still leaning toward the 80 gig hard drive on a D830. The cost to upgrade to a the 120 gig drive is between $30-$50 depending on whether I go for the 7200 RPM or 5400 RPM drive. I have 30 gig worth of mp3 music on an external drive and that's where I plan to keep those files. I'm not a gamer. I'm hoping the 80 gig drive will be sufficient. Is there any reason for me to think otherwise?

 

If you know you can get by on 80 GB, and you won't be requiring anymore space for other media/files, then the 80 GB should do fine. There shouldn't be a massive performance difference between the 80 GB and 120 GB drives, so if you go with the 80 GB drive, then it saves you some money, which you could spend on upgrading something else.

 

I guess that's sort of the question. Is an 80 gig drive sufficient for a Vista system. I skimped on the hard drive when I purchased by Inspiron 4100 in 2001 and have been kicking myself ever since for ordering a 10 gig hard drive. So like I say, I just want to make sure.

 

In that case, I think it may be better for you to go with the 120 GB hard disk. Windows Vista takes up quite a bit of space, and added with your MP3 collection, it may just leave around 40 GB free on an 80 GB disk. A 120 GB hard disk will be bette in that case.

 

If you don't do any file sharing or have a large music collection 80gb should be sufficient.

 

LOL... 40gb should be enough if you just want Vista and a typical selection of desktop apps. You meant you're going to continue to keep your music files on an external drive, right? Still, I'd get at least 60gb just in case. After that, it just depends on whether you want to put music and movies on there too.

 

In theory, 80GB should be plenty. But a couple things to consider:

Remember that Dell has a recovery partition that takes away about 10 GB (on my m1210, anyway).

It doesn't sound like you'll be stockpiling music and photos, but will you be copying DVDs? If so, you'll need about 8GB of spare space to cache the files from a dual-layer disc.

Everything keeps getting bigger and more bloated. Eighty gigs seems like plenty at the moment, but it might not be plenty a few years down the road.

But if you're trying to stay on budget, maybe you could go with 80 GB and eliminate the recovery partition someday, if and when space gets tight.

 

Yeah sounds like the 80 gig will be plenty. I keep my music and other media on the external HD because it doesn't leave the house and I won't lose that information if my laptop is lost or stolen. I appreciate this forum for answering this kind of pesky nagging question before the big purchase. I had no logical reason to justify upgrading the the 120 gig HD except the fear that I'd be shelling out $1500 on a higher end machine and might be shorting myself on storage. Problem solved.