Best 7200rpm HDD upgrade for T400?

My T400 is using a 7200.2 Momentus, which pretty slow (I believe that 7200.2 is quite old). I want to upgrade it to another HDD. Which HDD do you recommend to me? I would like to have a 160/250GB, 7200rpm HDD.

Please, don't suggest me to buy a SSD. It's still too expensive. I'll buy one, but not now .

 

hitachi 7k500 series, but i doubt it is going to give you noticeable performance increase over what you've already got

if you need the upgrade for capacity, that's another story...

 

Yes, the throughput on Hitachi will be much better, but that only helps if you're moving around large files. It's the latency that makes it seem faster or slower. There the two drives will be fairly similar. Unless you've got a need for more storage I'd stick with what you got. Put the money you were going to spend towards a SSD for when you can afford one.

 

I'm inclined to agree with ZaZ on this one. Most 7200rpm drives have similar rotational latency (i.e. access time). Therefore, a newer 7200rpm drive is unlikely to make the system feel faster. Saving your money for an SSD in the future makes the most sense to me.

However, if you do want to upgrade your HDD, I would suggest you get a 250GB drive from a 500GB series (e.g. if there is a 250GB Seagate 7200.4). This will give you the increased throughput from the high areal density and will generally use less power (and be quieter) as it is only a single platter drive.

 

I used both 250GB Western Digital Scorpio Black and 250GB Seagate Momentus 7200.4 drives and both are decent performers. But the difference and performance between the brands are neglible, I choose whatever is cheaper.

 

I think the fastest HDD out there has already been mentioned; the Hitachi 7K500, in 500GB. Mine ran around $130 or so with priority shipping. You probably won't notice much more speed out of it than with your current drive, but if you need the extra capacity it's a nice, fast drive. If you don't need the extra capacity jonlumpkin's suggestion for a 250GB HDD in the same series is a great one, and will likely save you some money getting a smaller capacity drive.

 

Hm...I don't need to upgrade capacity right now because my desktop can handle that. Everyone seems to advice me to buy a SSD instead. I will consider about buying a X25 V 40GB, which somewhat enough for my Windows installation

 

All 7200rpm drives are the same but I prefer Seagate over WD for portable devices for its power saving features. I suggest that you do a zero-fill and reformat as its probably badly fragmented and save up for an SSD in the future.

 

The HDD is performing properly, without problem. I complained it's slow cause of HDTach benchmark compared to others HDD.

 

Does it feels slow in real-life performance, like closing opening of files, apps? Benchmarks does not always show accurate results.

 

What's the access time on the HDD? That's generally the biggest determinant of felt performance (sequential throughput is ancillary).

 

honestly, how long would it really take you to save $100 to be able to afford a decent 80 or 128GB SSD? heck, you could probably go out and pick up cans off the side of the road to sell back and make $100 in a weekend...

 

X-25V is a much faster than some value SSDs such as Kingston V, that's why I chose it. I can buy a new 40GB one with 150$, include taxes and ship fee (quite expensive, huh?).

Honestly, and my salary is low here, and I have too much things to pay for, not only upgrading my laptop.

 

If 40GB is enough for you (it should be as long as you don't store much video on your laptop) then the x-25V is a fine choice and will be MUCH faster than any 7200rpm drive.

 

Yeah, I think that would be the best choice for me. . I just need to install Windows and then store working documents on my laptop. My desktop will handle everything else.