What second hard drive (speed) should I buy for my XPS 1730?

I just purchased a refurbished XPS 1730 that came with a 250 GB (5400 rpm) hard drive. I want to purchase a second hard drive either another 250 GB (5400 rpm) or a 160 GB (7200 rpm). I play flight simulation games and am wondering which one would be the best for gaming?

Could someone please recommend which one I should buy? I am somewhat new to gaming notebooks.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

I highly recommend Hitachi Travelstar 7200RPM. Any size doesnt matter. The RPM matters.

Hope this helps. : )

 

TBH you'll hardly notice the difference between the 7200rpm and the 5400rpm. If you could do with the extra storage space, just go with the 250GB. Thats what I would do.

 

Agreed. RPM does matter otherwise most of the high end servers would not come with SCSI 10000 or 15000 RPM. The rule applies to notebook too.

People would not get WD Raptor for no reason if it doesn't boost the performance on their PCs with higher RPM.

 

Thanks for the information guys!

If I go with the faster 160 Gb (7200 rpm) hard drive (purchased through Dell), will I have any compatability issues running it along side the the slower 250 Gb (5400 rpm) hard drive?

Lastly, if I did this, is it difficult to configure the faster hard drive to be my primary hard drive? Or will I have compatability issues?

 

actually RPM should be taken with a grain of salt. I would take a 250GB 5400rpm HD over a 160GB 7200rpm because of the density of the 250GB hard drive makes it the same speed as the 160GB one. It means more space for a lot less. However if its 160GB 5400rpm vs 160gb 7200rpm the 7200rpm one will be faster. So it matters on the capacity of the hard drives ur comparing

 

If the 160 GB (7200 rpm) hard drive is roughly the same speed as the 250 GB (5400 rpm) hard drive, then I guess there isn't any benefit in getting a second drive (for gaming purposes). This will definately save me some money.

I very much appreciate everyone's help!!

 

If you config it with RAID 0, then you have to buy the 250G, if you just want to add another harddisk, any size can work fine.

 

Can you tell me what the benefit of configuring with Raid 0 would be? Would this give me faster access times?

Sorry for the dumb questions. I am a bit knew to all this.

 

RAID 0 distributes pieces of the files equally across both disk drives. If you have 2 250 GB drives, then it will be much better performance than if you had a 250 and a 160 because they are different drives of different capacities.

 

Can you please cite this because I have never heard of that.

 

In a Raid 0 set up, can you still use the second hard drive as a backup (to copy files, etc.)? Or does Raid 0 make both hard drives work as basically one hard drive without the ability to back up system files?

 

I would get another 250gb drive and put it in raid 0. I would then get an external drive to keep as a backup. Thats just my opinion.