7200rpm Laptop Hd

[JackFrost]

I am thinking of replacing my 4200rpm laptop hd with one of the new 7200rpm (ati not sata) 2.5 versions. Has anyone had any experience or seen a reveiw/comparison?

Thanks

[Tywais]

A couple of articles you can look at:

http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/newsro...13,3160,00.html

http://laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=16

[geoffphuket]

I am thinking of replacing my 4200rpm laptop hd with one of the new 7200rpm (ati not sata) 2.5 versions. Has anyone had any experience or seen a reveiw/comparison?

Thanks

I replaced my old 10Gb hardrive (4200rpm) in my laptop last month, for a 80Gb 7200 and the difference was amazing - go for it

Edited August 29, 2006 by geoffphuket

[h90]

I am thinking of replacing my 4200rpm laptop hd with one of the new 7200rpm (ati not sata) 2.5 versions. Has anyone had any experience or seen a reveiw/comparison?

Thanks

would say it also depends on your Ram. If you have 256 MB Ram and it always needs to write a lot on the HD it may bring more benefit, than if you have 2GB installed and the computer is cashing a lot.

In total with more HD space, less defragmentation and a static swap file I think it brings a lot. I remember from my old laptop when I took out the 6 GB and put in a modern (at this time) 14 GB HD it was subjectiv a lot faster.

[Firefoxx]

I replaced my Acer's laptop 4200rpm drive with a 7200 drive. Speed difference was very noticeable (it's also noticeable with 5400 drives too), and I have 2GB of ram on my notebook. Again, laptop drives are smaller and therefore slower than desktop drives. Not only that, they spin slower (typical desktop drives spin at 7200 rpm). It's the major weakness of laptops. A 7200 rpm laptop drive isn't going to be as fast as a 7200 desktop drive, but it's a whole lot better than the 4200 drive.

If you're in Thailand, then good luck finding a 7200 rpm 2.5" drive. AFAIK, no one here stocks them. I had to buy mine from the US (newegg, of course).

[backflip]

You are likely to nitice an increase in speed, and a decrease in battery play time.

[monty]

Plenty of shops stock them, even TukCom Pattaya.

Bought mine in Notebook Hardware (I think its called)...

Biggest difference is in boot time, and starting up big applications like all the Adobe bloated stuf

It does indeed decrease battery time, not sure by how much, but I did notice the 7200 rpm 2.5" drives won't always run in an external case straight from the USB port...

They obviously go over the 500 mA limit of the USB port and thus require you to connect the extra powersupply to the external case to get them going!

[dekka007]

Cant say I have noticed any substantial decrease in battery life maybe 2-5 mins max.

[thaigerd]

I am thinking of replacing my 4200rpm laptop hd with one of the new 7200rpm (ati not sata) 2.5 versions. Has anyone had any experience or seen a reveiw/comparison?

Thanks

I replaced my old 10Gb hardrive (4200rpm) in my laptop last month, for a 80Gb 7200 and the difference was amazing - go for it

How much did u pay and which shop please?

Thanks,

Gerd

[Simmo]

What do you guys think a better "bang for your buck" upgrade would be for my laptop?

512M ->1GB RAM

or

4200rpm hard drive to 7200rpm

Mostly used for business apps, watching videos, gaming and some video editing.

[dekka007]

512M ->1GB RAM

or

4200rpm hard drive to 7200rpm

I would go with the HD, Watching Movies, Business Apps doesnt need that much memory.

Loading times on games will decrease substantially.

Although having said that for what it costs to upgrade memory these days I would get both

[autonomous_unit]

I'd get 1GB of RAM before upgrading the hard-drive speed, though if the hard-drive space upgrade is important to you that might be more important than the RAM...

There are three ways a disk can feel faster (the third usually only applies in a laptop):

1) Higher bandwidth when working on large files. Most newer and higher RPM disks will also have higher bandwidth, but as mentioned above, a smaller diameter laptop disk is at a disadvantage (on average) compared to a desktop disk of the same RPM. An older laptop might also have other components which limit bandwidth, e.g. disk controller speed, memory speed. (Bandwidth depends on how fast "i.e. meters/second" the disk surface flies under the heads... the larger the diameter, the faster the bits fly by at a given RPM on the outermost tracks. The inner part of the desktop disk will perform just like the laptop disk since the tracks have the same diameter.)

2) Shorter seek time when jumping around to small files (or very fragmented files). A big part of the seek time is spent waiting for the disk to come back around for the next try to read data after moving the heads. A faster RPM rating means this happens in less time, so subjectively you can get to your files more quickly.

3) Drive spin-up time. If you have your laptop aggressively turning off the hard drive when idle, you will have to wait for it to get back up to speed to access files. This is MUCH greater time wasting than the seek time above. I think you would have to compare specific drive specifications to compare their spin-up times, as there is no strong correlation to RPM. (A higher RPM should take longer to reach, all else being equal, but a higher RPM drive might also be made with lighter components and a stronger motor that can get up to speed with less effort than a slower, heavier drive.)

My subjective experience is that it feels fast when the drive is already running, and any time spent spinning up drives me almost as crazy as the slow Internet here. However, I do have it spinning down because it keeps the drive a lot cooler in this hot climate, which I think may benefit me in the end.

[Tywais]

Going from 512MB to 1GB you will not 'feel' much improvement for general applications and normal use. However the 4200 to 7200 rpm upgrade will be more significant in loading applications and if the app requires large amounts of memory the caching time to disk will be much faster. So I recommend the HD upgrade.

[dekka007]

My subjective experience is that it feels fast when the drive is already running, and any time spent spinning up drives me almost as crazy as the slow Internet here. However, I do have it spinning down because it keeps the drive a lot cooler in this hot climate, which I think may benefit me in the end.

I never have it spin down unless on battery. I run my laptop 24 hours on AC adaptor all the time with no spin down for almost 2 years in this climate. No problems at all. (The drive is 7200rpm 60gb 4 years old).

The faster HD will benefit all applications/windows startup/general usage etc. Where is the memory will only benefit those applications that use 1gb which wont be many.

Buy both

[Firefoxx]

Monty, some specifics on where you got the drive would be good. I went to all the notebook shops in IT Mall, and my friend scoured all the shops in Pantip, and neither of us could find any 7200rpm notebook drives. They're not that easy to find.

For a notebook, regardless of what harddrive you have, any increase in memory will help. The ceiling is low, and usually you get only 256-512mb standard, which is not enough, even for basic work. Getting a 7200rpm drive will also help. Get both.

[Tywais]

For a notebook, regardless of what harddrive you have, any increase in memory will help. The ceiling is low, and usually you get only 256-512mb standard, which is not enough, even for basic work. Getting a 7200rpm drive will also help. Get both.

You are right regarding memory in a notebook. I forgot to take into account that it is usually shared memory (graphics display) and as such can help. If it is not shared then the performance increase above 512MB for normal use will not be more then a few percent.

Memory size performance test

Upgrading notebook