Need to upgrade my notebook's hard drive...should I get a 7200 RPM drive?

Semi-serious answer: Wait for a couple of years until the improvements in flash drive technology discovered by U of Arizona kick in and we all have flash drives with 900 GB of space on them. Shit tons of memory in a small package :p

Serious answer: Everyone else had mentioned this but I thought I might add my 2 cents to the "Don't get a 7200 RPM drive because it'll become hot easily and drain your battery" fund. Friend of a friend of mine installed one in his laptop and the fan was spinning much faster than before and the temperature was definitely much higher. He was plugged in, so I'm not sure about his say on the battery consumption but I think that was the least of his problems at the time.
 
Those 2.5 inchers are nice as they don't require an external power supply (just bought a WD 250GB for my dad for $99), but are about twice as expensive as 3.5" (for $100, you can get a WD 500GB).
 
Sorry to bring up an old topic here, but I thought I'd share my recent experience with upgrading to a 7200rpm notebook drive. I have a Dell Inspiron e1505 that came stock with an 80gb 5400rpm drive. I bought a Hitachi 7k200 200gb drive for $119.99 USD. I tried to clone my drive so as to not lose my Windows install, but I messed it up somehow and had to reinstall anyway. I LOVE my decision. This drive is amazing. My battery life has actually slightly improved and the new drive seems to run cooler than the old one did. I haven't noticed the fan coming on more often than before, and, as I said, no real effect on battery life. Windows boots extremely quickly, and all programs open seemingly instantaneously. I have upgraded the RAM to 2 GB in the past on this laptop and saw some increase in speed as a result, but this was the best upgrade decision I have ever made. Couldn't be happier with this drive
 
the guy at the mac store said that the 7200 rpm drive zaps an hour of battery life, which wouldve left me with 5 hrs run time..... 2 hours on your rig. keep the 5200 speed. also a drobo might not be a bad idea for you....get the bit that makes it accessable over the internet and your set.
 
Well, I already bought a 5400RPM drive a little while ago. Can't be missing what I never had, I guess ;)
 
Viper007Bond said:
Those 2.5 inchers are nice as they don't require an external power supply (just bought a WD 250GB for my dad for $99), but are about twice as expensive as 3.5" (for $100, you can get a WD 500GB).
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And you should be twice as careful with them. Incredibly fragile...
 
_HighVoltage_ said:
And you should be twice as careful with them. Incredibly fragile...
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Don't mention those lil' basterds to me... :cry: mine broke. But I did get a 7200 RPM drive in exchange.

I had the lappy plugged in most of the time before and after so I couldn't tell you much on that end. As far as the heat issue though? Well I never noticed a tremendous increase in heat. Speed was slightly more noticible but maybe more due to your laptop being new-er maybe?

I suggest when your in there installing the drive, make sure to clean out your heat blowers. It will save you time later when the heat spikes occur. And just go with the faster drive if its only $10 more, you'll like it.

I would offer mine to you now that my lappy's broke, but its only 80gb (upgraded from a 20gb).
 
Yaco said:
Don't mention those lil' basterds to me... :cry: mine broke. But I did get a 7200 RPM drive in exchange.
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How do you think I know that :p
 
I thought you might just be a little smarter, but I guess its just wisdom.

I didn't even press hard and I heard a lil.... how do I say this? "OH FUCK!" kinda sound.
 
Well, I did drop mine and that killed it. But it only fell from one foot, I thought they were designed to survive light hits.
 
Only get the 7200 RPM drive if you plan on doing heavy video editing/converting or anything else that will make heavy use of moving large files. It will run those kind of tasks much faster then a 5400 RPM drive.

However, if you plan on using the drive for more practical uses, go with the 5400 RPM drive as it uses less battery power and creates less heat. Remember, when a program is being used, it will be stored in RAM, and if you have enough RAM the HD won't be accessed. I'm running a 5400RPM drive for Photoshop, Programming, and various other things and don't notice any type of lag in comparison to the 7200RPM's I've used.
 
Actually, the main thing I was considering 7200RPM for was for VMWare, which is a pretty heavy-hitter on disk activity. Nonetheless, I stuck with 5400RPM as performance is certainly not unbearable.
 
Ah, well I'm using Parallels for Mac and am having no trouble with it from what I can tell! I really don't think the 7200 RPM drives really make THAT much of a noticeable difference...
 
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