W5a - upgrade memory or hard drive?

Greetings,

I am torn between buying a 1gb stick of memory and a new hard drive to improve performance. I should probably get both, but...

I currently have 512mb of ram.

I dont do too much heavy duty stuff; I typically have 3-4 apps open at a time. I can tell when email is being checked in the background because responsiveness on the program I am working in sometimes lags. This makes me think I should get memory.

It also takes a while for the computer to boot up (I wouldnt say it ever booted up speedily). This makes me think I should upgrade the 4200 rpm hard drive. Space isnt an issue; i only use about 13 gb of the available 40, and I rarely use the computer somewhere that I can not plug in.

Any advice is appreciated!

 

Ok, lets get some basic facts out of the way.

The more ram the better, faster load times, better performance all around.
When you boot your computer you can tell how much ram you are using right now. For example I am using over 400MB out of 1024MB, meaning roughly 50% of my resources are gone to windows and a few apps and a few start up programs.

You stated you only have 512mb, which leads to me to believe that your already almost using up all of your ram easily.

Lag is definitely created when ram is low on resources, meaning it loading. For example gamers who don't have enough ram experience stutters while gaming, which generally means ram is still rendering a massive amount of graphics, which stutters because it is being slightly overwhelmed. A good example is BF2, where everyone would suggest 2GB of ram to play smoothly.

Upgrading the hard drive to a 5400 rpm or even 7200rpm may not yield the best performance gains for you since your ram is almost maxed out to begin with.
No doubt getting a faster hard drive will mak your boot time faster and load programs faster, but ram can also do this for you in your situation.

Hence getting a 1GB stick of ram would seem the better way to go. Getting a new hard drive shouldn't be much of a worry to you. adding 1GB will give you 1.5GB which is plenty, then wait for 7200rpm hard drive to slowly drop in price and pick one up for cheap later on.

hope this helps.

 

Thank you for the detailed and thoughtful feedback!

I guess part of my reason for thinking hard drive is that I have never had a desktop PC with more than 512mb of RAM - and I'm pretty happy with how they perform. Now that I think of it, the desktops have had identical 'symptoms' to the laptop - slowly degrading performance over time. It's just much more noticeable on the laptop.

thanks again!

 

No problem, I have a desktop and laptop with 1GB of memory, then I tested the LG S1 with 2GB of RAM and everything was so much faster, you get a WOW feeling with 2GB. Especially for gaming too.

 

I had a big post written, but I hit 'backspace' when clicked outside of the text box and Firefox went 'Back' for me.. Sigh.

I agree.

When XP came out you could "get by" with 256, 512 was golden for home users, and 1GB for heavy gamers.

Now 256 is unusable, you can "get by" with 512, 1GB is golden for home users, and 2GB for heavy gamers.

XP and the programs we run on it have grown a lot over the last few years. You can never have too much RAM. I have 2GB in my desktop to keep my dual core and 6800GT (8600GTS in the spring) happy.... 1GB in the laptop to feed the Pentium-M/integrated graphics.

 

Wanted to provide an update!

added a 1GB stick of memory (G.Skill), and it is indeed recognized (contrary to manufacturer's statement to the contrary) - so now I have 1.25 GB of memory. It certainly makes a noticeable difference, but I think I still want to upgrade the HD to a 7200 rpm drive. This has made enough of a difference to stave off the craving for a while though!

SO, here's my question: Do 'retail boxed' drives all come with software I can use to transfer everything from one drive to the other? I've only ever bought OEM drives. Also, will I be able to simply buy a USB enclosure and transfer everything over that way? OR, should I just get something like this?

Thanks to ProPortable, MilestonePC, and Jumper for the help!

 

I have never bought a retail hard drive. If the manufacturers have software tools, they are usually available for download. For instance, I bought a new OEM Western Digital drive for my family's PC (by accident...meant to click on Seagate...wasn't paying attention...WD sucks) and to transfer all the data I just went to their website and downloaded the WD software.

I have a Hitachi 7K100 80GB in my laptop. I like it a lot, and it doesn't seem a all hot or power hungry, no matter what people say about putting 7200RPM drives in a 12" laptop.

That 'notebook upgrade kit' is just an external enclosure with some software (probably for transferring data) included. I would see what software the manufacturer of the new drive offers, and if they have something available, get just an enclosure. Something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145124

 

I suspected the kit was more expensive than necessary, but I didnt know the software was available for free download! It looks as though you can create a bootable CD to copy entire disks from the old to the new HD. I am trying to avoid doing a complete reinstall. THANKS!