How important is hard drive speed for T400?

I know this topic has already been discussed ont this site, but i haven't gotten a clear answer and it seems like it depends ont he computer. SO i am looking at buying the t4000 with 2.53ghz, 3gb ram, ati 256mb, and my last big thing is that i need to choose the hard drive. i get to choose between a hard drive of 160gb at 7200, 250 at 5400 all for the same price. i can also upgrade to 320 for an extra 60, although the latter seems somewhat excessive to me. my current computer is almost full (100gb) and i plan to add much more music to it. my question is, is there a big difference with the 7200 rpm using my configuration? i heard that the big jump is between 4000 and 5000 but the change b/w 5000 and 7000 is minimal. is this true? will it suck up a lot more battery power, i'm a student so it's kind of important to me. does the extra space i get outweigh the potential gains of a faster hard drive. in generalm what are your thoughts? thanks a lot.

 

A faster drive will lead to a much faster PCMark05 score (see this thread), but it won't necessarily have a big effect on actual usage. You will probably see marginally faster application launch times because a 7200 RPM drive can relocate the heads quicker, and disk intensive tasks (virus scans, copying a file from one portion of the drive to another, copying a file from another computer with a fast drive or NAS over Gigabit Ethernet) due to the higher throughput the drive can provide (although this is somewhat offset by the higher density of the 5400 RPM drives [especially the 320GB drive]).

If you are using Vista, superfetch will help to offset the lower application launch speed by preloading applications into RAM and thus improving performance during long sessions. I think that the new 7200RPM drives are pretty miserly when it comes to wattage and are comparable to a 5400 RPM drive in terms of battery life.

I have a 160GB 5400 RPM drive and am satisfied with its performance within Windows and the system boot time. However, hibernation is VERY slow and I am strongly considering turning it off [especially if/when I move to 4GB RAM], this would probably be better with a 7200RPM drive.

If you are looking to get the best drive at the lowest price, it may actually be wise to just order your system with the 80GB 5400 RPM drive. You can then order a replacement drive online for a lower price than you can from Lenovo. You can get a 320GB 5400 RPM drive shipped for about $90. You could then clone the image from your 80GB drive using a program like Diskdruid to your new drive. You could then use the 80GB drive as an external drive with an enclosure, or save it for an emergency restore drive.

 

ditto on what jonlumpkin said. i am a big fan of 7200 rpm drives myself. you can buy a 7200 rpm 320 gb hard drive for about $100-120. select the cheapest hard drive from lenovo, order a sweet fast hard drive from newegg (along with a SATA 2.5" hard drive enclosure), clone your hard drive to the big fast drive and switch. cheaper and you have an 80 gb external drive. my 2 cents.

the really nice thing about buying your own hard drive is you can research it and get exactly what you want. some 7200 rpm hard drives have very good power usage, for instance. some 5400 rpm drives have better performance than others, etc.

p.s.- welcome to the forums!

be sure to do a search or two (up on the right) in these forums for things like 'best 7200 rpm 320 gb drive'... you will find a lot of info.

 

I noticed a considerable improvement after I upgraded my 5400 rpm drive to 7200.

 

7200rpm makes a noticeable difference. The power use over the 5400rpm is insignificant in actual use (given that power difference are only relevant when going full bore, and even then, it's very small.)

You can get a 320GB 7200 rpm for around $100 from various merchants, so I would recommend taking the lowest drive (80GB, 5400rpm), and then just swapping it out with a drive and selling the other on ebay (or stick it in an enclosure and use as backup.)

 

That's exactly what I did and am happy with the decision.

I kept the 80GB for backup. It is very easy to swap the drives...just make sure to make your backup discs before swapping the drives

 

I am planning on doing this upgrade, are most of you replacing the hard drive with the SEAGATE 7200.3 320gb?

Also, are there any cheap external enclosures to make the transfer a breeze?

 

yes Seagate 7200.3 is the best one out there.

 

I'm using WD Scorpios (320Gb, 7200rpm), which are the best for me. They run cool (relatively) and quiet. WD/Hitachi/Seagate are all good. I avoid all others.

You can get a cheap SATA enclosure from Meritline for $15. Works just fine.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817392019

 

um, the one you link clearly says "IDE"....

 

I went with their 250GB 7200rpm model as I didn’t feel like paying the little premium for ~70GB more/their largest 320GB one, but this HD is **** quiet and fast. Combine this with the 4GB of RAM in this notebook and it’s just “really ****ing fast.” I’m very pleased with the performance.

 

My bad; looked just like the SATA one.

I've correct the post with the correct one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817392019