XPS M1530 - 5400rpm HDD vs 7200rpm

Looking at getting a M1530 with the T7500 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB/4MB cache) processor. Is the performance of a 7200 rpm HDD that much more noticable or should I settle for a larger 5400rpm HDD? Concerned about heat issues with the bottom facing fan and that performance of the 7200 rpm would be limited by the FSB speed. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

 

250GB 5400rpm has comparable performance to a 160GB 7200rpm.

200GB 7200rpm is faster than a 250GB 5400rpm.

Never heard anything about the FSB limiting the hard drive before...

 

7200 RPM drives die faster, but they take quite a while to do so as it is (ok well like 4 years) but they do ahve a higher chance for damage
FSB doesn't limit the HDD as far as i know
if you really must ahve the fastest thing then go with the 7200 RPM
i personally will be upg to a 200GB 7200 (as opposed to my 80GB 5400) when i get my laptop because its a lot cheape,r even with the cloning software
ill let you know how it goes if you haven't decided by then lol

 

The WD 5400rpm 320gb is on par with the Hitachi 7200rpm drives..

 

How come you said "4 years" that it will die?

 

FSB deals only with the processor and the memory, the HDD does not come into play at all. If you have a few extra $$ definitely go for the 200gb 7200rpm drive.

 

I read charts, and the 160GB 5400RPM from Seagate was as fast as many 7200 drives.

A 250GB 5400RPM will be fast enough, especially if you use hibernation rather than shut down everytime...

 

WRONG! 7200 is faster than any 5400 HD's.

 

Are you sure about that

http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage25.html

 

if i'm not mistaken rpm is rotations per minute, how is it possible that some 5400rpm drives are as fast as 7200rpm drives of the same size? Isn't that just blatant false advertisement? it's like saying a 100 hp motor is just as fast as a 150hp motor of the same capacity.

now higher hd are obviously more dense so when you read from a highly dense harddrive, you don't need a lot of rotations, but if i'm also not mistaken, unless your computer is not written in a linear fashion (meaning ur data is not all over the HD, fragmented, etc etc) this size/density relationship becomes less meaningful than speed.

 

They certainly are not, who said that

 

5400rpm 250GB is about as fast as a 7200rpm 160GB. Why? Because the capacity of each platter in the 250GB hard drive is higher, access time becomes lower, even though it's only rated at a speed of 5400rpm.

 

I replaced my original 160GB 5400 with a 200GB 7200. The 7200 is noticeably faster. I would recommend 7200.

 

7200 is obv the best choise!

but what do you do with the spare drive, do you get good money selling the chepest drive that comes with the system on ebay!

it would make sure you got the seagate 7200 200 gig drive if you just bought it!

 

OK here is the brief yet complete answer: Higher capacity hard drives have higher data density on the platter so will read faster considering the same rotational speed. BUT the speed advantage of this over 7200rpm is only seen when the data density difference is large, e.g. with 320gb vs 200gb drives. So a 320gb 5400rpm drive data rate is faster than a 200gb 7200rpm drive when reading or writing, but seek times still are lower because of lower rotational speed. 250gb 5400rpm vs 160 or 200gb 7200 rpm drives aren't different enough size wise to see the advantage of higher data density.

SO: it depends on what you want: do you do a lot of large size file transfers? If so go for the 320gb 5400rpm drive,

If you need faster seeking, go for 7200rpm. It really depends on what you use your compute for. I'd say average users probably benefit a tiny bit more from the 7200rpm drives while those that deal with huge files benefit more from larger drives

THE END

 

seeking is what is on the start up of vista right, that’s where my notebook struggles, the hard drive is constantly maxed out on the frequency until 10 min after start up, and opening files, even when the vista warning comes up, sometimes that takes like 10 seconds from the blurry screen!, I always use defrag to keep my drive optimum! Just need a faster drive I guess.

 

What HD manufacturers are available on the XPS 1530? As seen in that chart posted above there is quite a difference between different manufacturers. Tough luck if you get a harddrive with poor performance.

 

Just get the 7200 .

 

Quick question, how would one be able to tell what brand his HD is?

 

You can get that info if you go to device manager and look under disk drives

 

or you can take a peak into bios data when you start the machine...