hard drive recommendation

I'm looking to upgrade my current hard drive. Just need a larger hard drive for storage. Is there any difference between the 5400 and 7200. I know the 7200 is faster, but considering I only need a larger drive, would the extra cost be worth it? Looking for a 160-200gb drive. Which internal hard drive is best?

 

you might want to consider the western digital 250gb. if you buy the external wd passport 250gb drive, you can get it for a pretty nice price....about $130 or less on ebay.

 

IMO, get the 7200 rpm 160GB if you can afford, because it does really make a difference and you will notice faster transfer speeds/ boot up times in your laptop. Here's a link to a 160GB that is jus a rebranded Seagate:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dfh&cs=22&sku=341-4636
Here's a 200GB one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?ATT=22145160&CMP=AFC-SlickDeals&Item=N82E16822145160
If you have the money, go with the 200GB and if you think you really need the space. Supposedly the 200GB one is faster because it's plate density is greater.

 

getting faster hard drives will result in more noise though
depending on the drive of course, I believe hitachi and seagate have pretty quiet drives for 7200rpm


so if you don't really need the speed and don't have the money then just get a 5400

 

money is an issue since i'm a college student. i was looking at this hard drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145113

i really like this one, but can't seem to justify the need for the extra $90
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822145160

any other brands i should look at?

 

Get the Hitachi 7k200 7200rpm HDD, comes in 160GB & 200GB flavours. You wont be sorry.

 

I am looking to upgrade my HDD too. I have a 60GB T61. Did not realize that it would keep eating up storage and Vista is bulky too. Would rather go to 160 GB. For me, battery life is important. I am guessing that the 7200rpm would not give me as much time on battery.

Also, any guides to safe installation of HDDs and getting the OS and other software transferred? There are all kinds of security features in Vista. Hardware password, Client Sec Soln etc etc. How to handle these with the HDD upgrade?

 

That was a concerning factor for me when i bought last month my T61, and bought with the 160GB 5400 hard drive.
I remember 2 years ago, when i had an HP laptop and i replaced a 4200 hdd with one of 7200. My battery life drop by an hour...

I am sure that things has changed but there always be less battery available on a system with 7200 hdd than the same system with a 5400.
I also think that there may be some difference between the 2 but no so much to overcome the need of better battery life, if this is actually needed.

 

7200rpm HD-

Pros: faster speeds.

Cons: Less battery life, more heat, more noise, more expensive.

You decide.

 

"depending on the drive of course, I believe hitachi and seagate have pretty quiet drives for 7200rpm"

I've had two machines and have replaced the hardrives in both to increase capacity and did a lot of research. On desktops I use 15K rpm servers disk by seagate and they are wonderful. But after research the 2 1/2 inch drive it was pretty clear that the Hitachi Travelstars are the best laptop drives made.

I've purchase two and one of my lenovo's came with one. They fast and in my experience they are totally silent. There isn't any noise to them at all.

I can't comment on power and energy. My t61p has the max in options and it's eats batteries alive. I can't say how much of that is disk and how much isn't.

 

If your concern is:

1) Battery life - go with 5400 rpm.

2) Performance - go with 7200 rpm


General:
- 5400 rpm generates less heat. Maybe debatable if the heat difference is even noticable. However, if the HD is right under your palm then you might notice your palms getting sweaty.
- 7200 rpm is faster and louder.


**edit** woops, i htink someone beat me to these details already.

 

I wouldn't be concerned with battery life in terms of whether or not to get a 7200rpm drive. The difference between 7200rpm and 5400rpm drives today is usually around 1W which equates to very little difference in battery life. Both Hitachi and Seagate offer good power management in their drives. Seagate drives are usually regarded as the most silent while Hitachi is marginally faster in some benches. You shouldn't really notice much difference between the two. Something to note when buying aftermarket though is that unless things have changed as of late Hitachi doesn't offer advanced replacement on their hard drives so if yours is failing you'll have to send it in and wait for the replacement.

 

7K200

Highlights

* At 200GB 1, the highest capacity 7200 RPM 2.5” drive
* Third-generation PMR technology
* Best application performance in PCMark testing
* Industry-leading operating shock of 350G
* Lowest 7200 RPM power consumption, comparable to 5400 RPM
* Low acoustics, comparable to 5400 RPM
* Serial ATA 1.5 Gb/s

 

7200RPM period. If you buy a new computer, you expect it to be going fast, right ??

edit: spelling .. duh

 

5400RPM 160GB

Startup (peak, max.) 5.0W
Read (avg.) 1.8W
Write (avg.) 1.8W
Active idle (avg.) 0.85W
Low power idle (avg.) 0.65W
Standby (avg.) 0.25W
Sleep 0.2W

7200RPM 200GB

Startup (W, peak, max.) 5.5
Seek (W, avg.) 2.6
Read / Write (W, avg.) 2.3
Performance idle (W, avg.) 2.0
Active idle (W, avg.) 1.0
Low power idle (W, avg.) 0.8
Standby (W, avg.) 0.25
Sleep (W) 0.2

7200 uses a little more power (and therefore dissipates a little more heat), but both are in the same ballpark. Plus, the 7200RPM drive is going to draw the specified power numbers during reads/writes for a shorter duration, as the rotational speed is 33% faster. Since the 5400 is 25% slower, you would be consuming the stated numbers for a longer duration. 1.8W * 125% = 2.25W (versus 2.3).

In other words, the power requirements are about the same for reading/writing the same quantity of data. The 7200RPM drive is more expensive but is going to perform better.

If you're doing a lot of I/O, I would not consider a 5400RPM drive. If you spend most of your time surfing the web and working in Office and are willing to wait a little longer for bootup, the 5400RPM drive is more economical and will allow you to get a larger capacity drive for less money.

For both my T61p and now my X61t I purchased with a 7200RPM 100GB drive and upgraded aftermarket to a 7K200 200GB SATA drive for less than $180 each.

 

Seriously if you need to start looking at Seek, Read etc Wattage then you might aswell start making a log of all your HD activity over a week, make a big algorithm, working how much seconds or watts you save here and there... lol

Just get the 7K200 and enjoy.