Dell 6400 Hard drive upgrade

I'm planning on upgrading my hard drive, and I have some questions!

Is there a big performance difference between 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM?

If yes, in which situation ?

 

Yes, there will be a noticeable boost, but only for the following applications (rough list so there may be a little more):

OS Boot Times
Games and application loading times
File searches, accessing them, etc...

That being said, 5400 drives are certainly fast enough for most applications if you have an extra second to spare once in a while. Except for OS boot times, I've personally never come across a huge difference (though I might load a game 1sec faster with a 7200RPM drive). If you want to boost the overall performance of the laptop, look at upgrading the RAM first...and then the hard drive if you find you'd like a little extra boost.

 

i would second night 2004s suggestions
but a 7400 RP drive increases boot up time due to the increased spin up time if im not misteken
but it would generally increase your data access speeds in normal situations
but also note that more heat will be generated than a 5400RPM drive and a wee bit more noise
with power comes a few draw backs and these are a few
theres alwways the factor of sacrifice in this case its the heat and sound for faster access times and load times in games
in short the wait time during games will be cut down by a factor of two
and it will be useful while transferring large chunks of data to your hdd for example like copying a movie from a dvd will only take half the time

 

Thanks! The only game I play is Counter-strike source .. not much loading times except for joining a game..

Presently, I have a 80 GB 5400 RPM ... quite full!

So, I search a bit and saw like 160 GB 5400 RPM and 80 gb 7200 RPM

80 GB is the maximun capacity for 7200 RPM Hard drive for my 6400?

 

nowadays its possible to get 160gb 7200 RPM drives
but i would suggest to get a 120gb 7200 RPM as it is more economically sound and wouldnt put a dent in your pocket
the 80gb 5400 rpm you have now is equivalent to a 100gb 7200rpm is im not mistaken in loading speeds
if cs source is all you play then it is more than enough and the wait i usually because of the wait to get connected to a game during LAN games or so

 

That's what I thought ... is dell offering the 120 GB 7200.. or I will be more lucky on ebay?

 

you should also keep in mind that with the 7200 rpm hdd you're increasing power consumption so the battery loses charge quicker

 

Not really a problem for me

I'm just asking for HDD suggestion to make a good choice

 

On modern drives RPM doesn't make as huge of a difference as it used to.

I'm sure you'd notice in some areas. But if you're looking for some sort of huge FPS increase you aren't going to see it.

 

True.. That's why I asked because I wanted to know the impact or the RPM. I might only buy or make an ext. HDD to put my big files! Much space for cheaper probably

 

well it would be wiser to check out online stores like
ebay or newegg usually the latter has better prices but it always depends
be ure to buy the correct interface and check before you buy weather it is a SATA or PATA usually it is the former

 

any brand better than others?

 

for brand reliability there is a guide in the notebooks dummy guides section of the forum it can be located here

 

Thank you for your help

 

hope it helped
glad i could be of some use
all the best getting a good deal online
cheers