The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    HDD Upgrade

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by wetbikebubba, Jul 22, 2007.

  1. wetbikebubba

    wetbikebubba Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    16
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hey guys,
    Right now I would like to know if getting a faster HDD (I have a 4200 RPM) like at 7200 would make a big difference in the time it takes to pull up files, and what is HP's white list? Would it be worth the upgrade??? Thanks
     
    wetbikebubba, Jul 22, 2007
    #1
  2. baddogboxer

    baddogboxer Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    144
    Messages:
    1,092
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Yes faster for pulling up files. Worth it? Depends what you do but 4200 are slow. HP's white list? I don't know.
     
    baddogboxer, Jul 22, 2007
    #2
  3. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    7,197
    Messages:
    28,841
    Likes Received:
    2,166
    Trophy Points:
    581
    This thread discusses a similar upgrade question.

    Basically, any HDD with higher capacity and/or higher speed with give you better performance compared with what you have now.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Jul 23, 2007
    #3
  4. wetbikebubba

    wetbikebubba Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    16
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    So as long as I put in a sata hdd I can choose anyone, and does the cache memory on the Hdd have to match somthing on the computer? The cache memory will improve performance but, how much is good? Will it really make a difference? One last thing... my computer is running an AMD turion 64 x2 at 1.6 ghz. I know that not all game/programs run both cores but, can you name a few titles that will and will these games take full advantage of the processor and run it at 3.2 ghz? I know that I ask a lot of questions but, I appericiate all answers.
     
    wetbikebubba, Jul 23, 2007
    #4
  5. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    7,197
    Messages:
    28,841
    Likes Received:
    2,166
    Trophy Points:
    581
    The only thing to check on the SATA HDD options is to avoid the few which have the 12.5mm / 1/2" thickness unless you know they will fit.

    The cache size on the HDD won't affect compatibility. Most 2.5" HDDs have 8MB cache. I would avoid the few which have 2MB cache which there may be some benefit from the 16MB cache on the remaining few HDDs.

    I don't know which games are multi-threaded. However, dual core will still seem faster because if the game uses one core then the other core is available for the other 50 or so processes running in the background. In many configurations the GPU limits gaming performance more than the CPU.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Jul 23, 2007
    #5