Laptop hard drive speed and space

[mchong75]

Is there a noticeable difference between a 5400RPM versus a 7200RPM hard drive?

I’m customizing my laptop order via Dell.com and I can’t decide if I want the faster hard drive or to go with a larger memory. If I could, I would like both but Dell doesn’t offer that.

My choices are:


- 250GB SATA 5400RPM
- 160GB SATA 7200RPM

[kenw]

personally I would take the GB over RPM, especially 90 extra GB. More RPM usually hurts battery life as well.

[kwhite]

Originally Posted by mchong75

Is there a noticeable difference between a 5400RPM versus a 7200RPM hard drive?

I’m customizing my laptop order via Dell.com and I can’t decide if I want the faster hard drive or to go with a larger memory. If I could, I would like both but Dell doesn’t offer that.

My choices are:


- 250GB SATA 5400RPM
- 160GB SATA 7200RPM

I just upgraded the hard drive in my development laptop to 7200rpm from 5400 and there is a performance benefit. However increasing the size of your installed ram memory will usually give you more bang for your buck.

[JamesB]

I saw a good performance increase when I changed out a failing 5400 rpm drive with a 7200 rpm drive.

someone mentioned in another thread about a slight increase in heat do to the extra speed of the drive. not sure how much....

James

[mchong75]

Ken, I'm upgrading the RAM to 4GB DDR2. This should definitely increase the performance.

Boy!, I'm still 50/50 on this.

[JamesB]

get the faster drive and an external extra storage drive

James