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    checking the hard drive, making sure it's correct?

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by Steve325, Aug 31, 2008.

  1. Steve325

    Steve325 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I just recently purchased this laptop with a 160gb 7200 RPM HD. One of my biggest complaints is that my Mom just purchased an Inspiron 1525 with a 5400 RPM HD and it scores the exact same as mine in the Windows Vista performance test (5.3)

    something can't be right here...
     
    Steve325, Aug 31, 2008
    #1
  2. Rhodan

    Rhodan NBR Expert of Nothing

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    Wat's the size of the 5400rpm drive? A 320GB 5400rpm drive will be as fast, if not faster, than a 160GB 7200 RPM...
     
    Rhodan, Aug 31, 2008
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  3. gengerald

    gengerald Technofile Extraordinaire

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    Use HDTune as your final word on hard drive performance, the Vista test is not as comprehensive or trustworthy.
     
    gengerald, Aug 31, 2008
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  4. Steve325

    Steve325 Notebook Enthusiast

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    that doesn't make any sense. HD size would have nothing to do with rotations, which decreases seek time and write time. It should be the opposite, possibly a smaller HD being faster.

    Her's is 250gb

    I'll try another program and see, but I'm beginning to wonder myself. My HD on my desktop was scoring a 5.9 and was a 7200 RPM drive itself
     
    Steve325, Aug 31, 2008
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  5. Rhodan

    Rhodan NBR Expert of Nothing

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    higher density per platters means more data accessed per rotation... RPM is not all...

    And like gengerald said WEI is not trustworthy...
     
    Rhodan, Aug 31, 2008
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  6. gengerald

    gengerald Technofile Extraordinaire

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    Steve, just as Rhodan said, the larger notebook drives have higher data density across the platters, thus faster times. They very similar to the 7.2k drives. With that said, high density data 7.2k drives will then pull ahead. Basically a 200gb 7.2k is nearly equal to a 320gb 5.4k.
     
    gengerald, Sep 1, 2008
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  7. johnny13oi

    johnny13oi Notebook Evangelist

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    With more data packed closely together on the higher capacity hard drive, the drive can access and pull the data from it much quicker than one with the data packed less tightly even if it spins faster. I don't know if what I say next is all correct or not, but with a 320gb hard drive having double the density of a 160GB hard drive (assuming same amount of platters) the 160gb hard drive would need double the rpm to pull the data from the drive just as fast. So if the 320GB hard drive was 5.4k rpm then the 160gb would need to bw 10.8k rpm.
     
    johnny13oi, Sep 1, 2008
    #7