What disk drive longest battery life?

Does a 5200 rpm disk save energy (longer battery life) compared to a 7200 disk?

Does the size of the disk affect energy usage?

Thanks,
Mike

 

I would like to know the same thing.. Some people here at NBR told me a 7200rpm 160gb drive is as fast as a 5400rpm 320gb drive due to data density.
I don't know if this is true or not.

 

In most cases a 5400RPM drive will consume less power than a 7200RPM drive. They will also produce less noise and fewer vibrations. When comparing older 5400RPM drives and newer 7200RPM drives there may be exceptions. While disk size doesn't affect energy usage, platter count does - the fewer platters, the better.

Most of the time, lower-capacity 7200RPM drives will have the same throughput as higher-capacity 5400RPM drives. Nonetheless, the 7200RPM drive will offer faster seek times, which may or may not be useful to you.

If you really want to save energy, though, go buy an SSD

EDIT: Two effin thousand.

 

5400rpm is better in laptops you won't see much of a performance gain but you will get more heat and noise from a 7200 rpm,

take the $80 you would have spent on a 7200rpm and buy a cheap SSD and use that as a secondary drive, or make your 5400rpm a secodary drive.

And get like a Cheap 32GB or 64GB SSD put Vista SP1 on your SSD and you will boot in like 10 seconds, you will be super fast and use very little power.


And if you need extra storage you always have your secondary D: or E: 54000 rpm drive.

Thats why I got a Studio 17 so I could Run 2 Drives

 

So as not to start another thread, I want to ask if about hwo the 9-cell battery sticks out on the Studio 15. I'm aware it sticks out the back of the computer, but I want to verify whether it sticks out the bottom and raises up the computer. I prefer it NOT do this, because I prefer when the computer keyboard is close to level.
Thanks,
Mike