4200RPM and 5400RPM differences!

I want to buy a Asus labtop which is A6Jc and the place where i live(Denmark) i can only find Asus A6Ja.So the difference between A6Jc and A6Ja is 4200RPM and 5400RPM.So i afraid to buy a labtop with 4200RPM.Cuz i heard these hdd's are slow for the performance.My friend said that "the difference will be not much cuz it is not like the HDD's at desktop pc's.Cuz both of them r new tech. and have 8mb cache,so very less difference will be with both of them"
So i confused now.Do u think there will be less difference or i better forget 4200RPM labtop to buy?

 

I am trying to read what you are saying, but it's hard with all of the grammatical mistakes. I would go for the 5400 definitly.

 

He's from denmark. Very smart of you Tokuman.

Go with the 5,400 rpm hands down, it can be twice as fast as 4,200.

 

I don't know what your budget is, but the Zepto Znote 2425W is worth a look:
http://uk.zepto.com/Default.aspx?page=NotebookSummaryPage&notebookid=1NMxi7BPnzhGEJwoxDf
...and the HP nc8430 as well.

I wouldn't let the hard drive make or break your buying decision unless you were comparing two similarly equipped notebooks . . if you can't find anything more suitable than the A6JA, then it looks like that will be your choice. The hard drive is easily upgradeable aftermarket, consider doing that.

 

I wasn't trying to be rude, and what I said was true. I had trouble reading what he was saying. I did not call him by a negative racial word. I also did not say anything bad about Denmark. I did not call him an idiot. I did not say go back to school etc.

If anything the worst I did was state the obvious.

Csinth, you are the only one who has flamed here. You called me smart, but in a sarcastic, negative way. My school teachers would have used a ruler on you. You should have noticed you were the first to flame here. Maybe you were missed the one to miss the obvious thing, not me. Maybe it is not I that is the "smart" one.

Pwned, as you kids will say.

 

Sorry for poor English i have!
I heard 7200rpm is about 30% faster than 5400rpm.What about between 5400 and 4200?If it is twice as fast like csinth wrote,why a big company like ASUS put 4200rpm hdd such a nice core duo 1,83GHZ,1GB Ram labtop?It doesnt make sence i think!

 

Muzz81x, they just put the 4,200 in because it costs less, there for making the laptop more affordable.

 

muzz, I had a 4200RPM HD in a fast laptop before. It was a nightmare. I have 7200RPM in my new laptop and it makes a world of difference. If you get 4200 RPM HD it will slow your whole system done quite significantly. 4200 RPM HDs are cheaper, but not better. Get 5400 or even 7200 RPM drive if you can.

 

No problem. It just took me a little longer to understand. I am sorry if I offended you in any way. I have nothing against people of Denmark or any other country in this world.

No the 4200 is not twice as slow as the 5400. I am not sure about how much percentage wise. He was saying that, but had no proof or links to say either way. THAT IS A MYTH.

ALTHOUGH - I would not get a computer with a Core Duo 2400 with 1 gig of ram and only get a 4200 Hd. I would at least get one with 5400. Your computer will only go as fast as the slowest componet. You will have slow loadtimes and computer start up etc.

 

4200RPM drives may be slow, but the term 'slow' is relative . . maybe you don't need that fast of loading times. If it is just too slow, then upgrade it. I used a 40GB 4200RPM drive with a 2MB cache for several months in my last laptop before I upgraded to a 5400RPM/8MB. I didn't have any problems with the 4200 in the time I had it.

 

Indeed, I upgrade my hd from 4,200 RPM to 5,400 RPM. The 4,200 RPM started my notebook 1 min and 30 sec. Now the 5,400 RPM started my notebook only 1 min. 30 seconds faster.

JC

 

Hmm.. do you have any links to prove its a myth? I found some articles that suggested this, but I don't think it's necessary to provide them, as it would just be time consuming.

Anyways, Tokuman is right about your computer only going as fast as its slowest component. If you can, try to get 5,400.

 

Thanks all of your advices.So it looks like it is not a good idea to buy that labtop with 4200Rpm.So i better interest with HP nc8430 (Chaz advice) or Acer tm4674.Both look ok when i look price/performance rate!

 

Chaz makes a very good point.

I use a 4200 rpm HD and dont find it slow because its an improvement from my last laptop. I dont know what faster drives feel like and so dont feel the difference - i am happy with 4200 rpm. So like Chaz said, fast is a relative word to use.

@ muzz, thats not the only difference between the A6Ja and A6Jc - the video card is different in each laptop so if you will be gaming the x1600 in the A6Ja is a lot better than the go7300 in the A6Jc.

Hard drives can be upgarded later but if you will be doing little gaming get the A6Jc. It will be cheaper aswell as i have the A6Jc and the same spec A6Ja w/x1600 was £250 more.

 

Netbrakr,i can see u have 16MB cache 5400Rpm so thats why it makes about 30seconds difference.i dont think it will make about 30 seconds difference with normal 8MB cache 5400Rpm like most people use.maybe about 15 seconds it will make difference between 4200Rpm and 5400Rpm 8MB cache hdd.

It's good to see u r happy with ur 4200 Rpm labtop _radditz_.Thanks for ur advice too

 

muzz, but then if getting windows to load faster is your only concern then you indeed might be ok with 4200RPM drive

 

i really dont care about windows load faster or not when i open the pc Leshii!I am going to study computer science next year so important thing for me is performance.So i need a fast good labtop which deserve its money!

 

well its not just windows startup times that increase, anything that accesses the harddrive would be faster and like people say you can have the fastest processor, the best video card, but if you have a slower harddrive, access times from the harddrive will still be just slow.

 

You need to consider what applications/programs you are going to tun on your laptop. For Microsoft Office/Web Designing/Music yuo don't really need a 5400rpm drive as I doubt that you will see a performance difference from a 4200rpm drive. If you do a lot of gaming/video editing/AutoCAD and other intensive programs then I would suggest getting at least a 5400rpm drive as the HDD is often a major bottleneck, restricting the speed at which the RAM can access data from the HDD.

The reason why companies put 4200rpm drives in their notebooks is to increase battery life. A 5400rpm drive spins quicker, and uses up much more battery. 5400rpm drives are the common choice when it comes to HDDs in notebooks as it "attempts" to save battery life without comprimising on a lot of performance.

The reason why companies do not often put 7200rpm drives in their notebooks is because of the fact they use up a lot of power which really does decrease the battery life. You only really find 7200rpm drives in desktop replacement laptops.

Don't just look at the HDD when buying a laptop though, consider the CPU, GPU and RAM. The HDD can be easily upgraded after you buy the laptop.

 

Not true. The 5400RPM drives have the same power consumption as 7200RPM drives. The only reason they have slightly less life is because the 'spin-up' time, when the laptop is first turned on, takes a bit longer. See the sticky at the top of this forum for more info on the pros/cons of a 7200RPM drive.

 

Looks like I overestimated the power consumption of 7200RPM HDDs Chaz...

 

just get the 5400rpm harddrive ...

 

i found out that if you have a less Ram like 256 or 512,when the Ram gets full,Windows need to use virtual memory.So when Windows use the virtual memory from Hdd and if it is 4200Rpm,then it needs time load from Hdd cuz of 4200 is not so fast.So it is more important to get 5400Rpm if you have less Ram like 256 or 512.Right?

 

The virtual memory take some spaces in HD, to upgrade the memory will give you a better performance. Of course, 256MB seems to be not enough for running a Windows with application, but for Internet searching should be ok.
The difference of speed between4200rpm and 5400rpm is not a main issue related to choose 256 or 512MB. To get a better peformance, of course, 5400rpm with 512MB or higher would be perfect.

 

faster speed at the cost of diminished battery life.

 

The difference between 4200 and 5400 is minimal. 7200 is the only way if you are upgrading. Differences in power consumption are also minimal so there is no reason except price to buy a 5400.

 

Preview from my ongoing laptop hard drive review. The number of drives is enough for statistically significant conlusions. See the overlap between 4200 and 5400 drives. No gain. The way is 7200 definetely.




http://www.thelab.gr/attachment.php?s=&postid=371683

 

The speed difference between drive speeds seem to lessen as rpms go higher. For instance the 4200rpm drive in my wifes laptop is a hog compared to my 5400 120gb in my acer (although its more then fastenough for anything and everything). But the 7200rpm on my wifes desktop seems to pefroem the same as my 5400rpm drive. It may have to do with the denser platters.

 

5400RPM drives provide a very noticable difference in speed/'snappiness' over a 4200RPM. I went from a 40GB 4200RPM (2MB cache) drive to an 80GB 5400RPM (8MB cache) drive on my last notebook - night and day.

 

The extra 6MB of cache can't have hurt, either.

 

I think you should check the graphs with measurements first. There you can see that there is a considerable overlap between the 4200 and 5400 drives and the 7200 drives are at a different league.

 

Yup, I agree, major differences between 4200 rpm and 5400 rpm on both desktop and notebooks. Even with a gig of ram, it's a big difference. There is less difference between a 5400 and 7200... but still noticable to me. Then again, I usually require very fast access/transfer speeds. But heh, on desktop, I prefer RAID

 

I couldn't tell the difference in speed when i bought my new notebook with a 4200rpm HD. My old one had a 5400rpm, didn't seem any faster. (lol, i stupid -my old laptop had a Sempron, my new one has Turion X2 - that's y). ~

 

Provided you have enough RAM that you aren't constantly swapping things on and off the hard drive (virtual memory) then most of the difference will be when you are first starting a program or opening a file. No matter what hard drive you have in your laptop, there will be a noticeable delay when opening a larger program.

I've got one laptop with a 40 gig 5400 and one with an 80 gig 4200. I've tried opening a few programs that I have in common on both laptops (OpenOffice stuff and World of Warcraft) and the only times I've had a really clear difference the 4200 has actually won (it loaded OpenOffice Draw in 7 seconds vs. 17..). Terribly unscientific tests, I'm pretty much not controlling for anything, the laptops are different, but it's not exactly a dramatic difference.

 

The larger a drive is, and the bigger it's platters are, the more it will make up for the difference in rotational speed. An 80-100GB 4200rpm drive probably isn't going to feel any slower then a 40-60GB 5400rpm for the most part. The newer 120-200GB 5400rpm drives are also nearly as fast as the 7200rpm drives, especially the smaller 60GB and 80GB models. The new perpendicular 160GB drives from Hitachi and Seagate will beat the 60GB 7200rpm drives in the majority of tests. The 100GB model is still marginally faster in most areas but not by a large amount. The large 5400rpm drives offer more storage, less heat, less noise, and slightly lower power consumption although the difference in power usage is minimal.