160GB 5400RPM+256mb vs 100GB 7200RPM

Which is better performace wise. Dont care much about the 60GB difference. what would u choose?

 

the 60 gb extra space adds to performance as the head has to move less to acsess the same amount of data. + the 256 meg id go for the 160gb 5400 as the extra space is brilliant with only a tiny less performance

 

I assume that you are referring to a 160GB hybrid hard drive. Well, don't bother just yet.

 

so i should opt for the 100GB 7200RPM?
What are the pros and cons about 7200rpm?

 

The 7200rpm drive will be fastest without a doubt, the 256mb or ram of the hd is just like adding an extra 256 mb of very slow ram into your system. When you request a file, it has to take the file, load it into the HD ram.. then into your system ram, so your adding another step. If you were constantly working with files adding up to less then 256 mb's then it would be fast but this will probably not be the case as your constantly swaping whats sitting in that ram. Some synthetic bench marks make the hybrid drives look good but it doesn't reflect real word performance.

Hybrid drives really have a long way to go and maybe once its 4gb+ of ram we'll start to see a difference, but my feeling is by that time magnetic drives will be a thing of the past as ssd's are getting cheaper all the time.

 

Pros: Faster load/seek times.

Cons: Less battery life, more heat, higher cost.

 

What about a standard 160gb 5400rpm (WD comes to mind) vs a 100gb 7200rpm does the speed justify the difference in size?

 

THe higher plattery density will negate some or all of the speed advantage. There are more factors that just the speed of the drive that will determine how it long it takes to get data.

 

The heat that 7,200 RPM drives give off are negligble at best. We are talking perhaps 2-3 degrees difference, if that.

 

hmm so 160gb 5.4k or 100gb 7.2k place ur bets!

 

i would have gone for 160gb with 256mb but since some1 linked a review of how the hybrid suck because its so new, i think ill opt for the 10 dollar increase and go for 100gb 7200rpm. but thats if my current plan of getting a hold of a 32gb SSD fails.

 

I almost bought the Samsung hybrid, but I was concerned about reports of poor reliability. If reliability wasn't a concern, I would've bought it. I definitely would've bought the Seagate hybrid for that price if it was available. I wouldn't expect noticeable power savings since a hard drive doesn't use much power to start with, but you may notice an improvement when coming out of hibernation or standby. I doubt hybrids will really be beneficial until they have at least 1-2 gigs of hybrid cache.

Edit: I see the Seagate was just announced yesterday, but I bought a hard drive on Saturday. Seagate was two days late.

 

So in this situation I'd assume the extra 256MB on the HDD would serve as cache. Even though the cache would add speed to the 5400rpm, it couldn't compare to a desktop-caliber 7200rpm. I'd go with the 7200rpm.

 

why not just get a larger 5400rpm drive?? i have a western digital scorpio 250MB drive and its it a very fast drive. these can be had if you look for like 120-140$ for 250MB??

 

yeh zfactor's right, the bigger they get, the faster they get! (i think thats rite) that drive isn't actually that far off the 7k200 in terms of speed!