Question about a replacement.. (Hard Drive, etc.)

Ok Dell Complete Care has been excellent to me. I had an XPS 1640 (sig rig) that met it's demise.

So fare it's loaded - i7, 8GB 1333 DDR3 memory, etc. As you can see it's a lot nicer than what I had. I did have a BR-RE drive, they don't have any left so I'm getting a normal BD-Rom (no BR burner) BUT I can not complain due to the massive memory upgrade so I'm not worried. I did have the 4670 GPU and am hoping for a 5730 which I should have a good shot at as this is a NEW system being built for me.

My only issue with this replacement is the fact they are giving me a 640GB 5.4k drive instead of the 500GB 7.2k drive. I'd rather have the speed over capacity... But the more I think about it, the extra 140GB might be worth it over speed. My question is will I notice a difference between the 5.4k RPM drive and the 7.2k RPM drive? This machine will be used for HD movies/Blu-Rays and gaming.

This time I'm going to be smart and make a complete hard drive backup on DVD-R's using the Dell Data Safe Local software so I never have to "fresh" install and save time with everything already installed. I did not do this with my old laptop and lost things like the X-Fi MB software, etc. That and I hear Dell is no longer shipping out restore discs though I'm sure I could get them. But I know from experience that they have no clue how to get you things like the X-Fi MB software, etc.

 

I'm gonna say that you're not going to notice a difference between the two drives. Simply due to the higher platter density of the 640GB device, the raw transfer rates are probably going to be similar, and - at least in my experience - the difference in access time is negligible in normal use. Heck, in some corner cases, the 640GB drive might even be faster overall.

Of course, if you actually do happen to notice a difference, you can always drop in an aftermarket 500GB, 7200RPM drive.

 

Are you going to be gaming? With an i7 your always running the risk of not seeing the performance your paying for with the SXPS16. (throttling)

 

I wouldnt worry about the br burner. Tech should be able to come out and switch... might even be able to convince online support to switch your 640 to 256 SSD (i was able to). The speed difference between hd and ssd is amazing.

 

Oh yeah I'm well aware of the throttling. I'm hoping for the best so we shall see.

And thanks guys for the replies makes me feel a bit better!