How bad is a 4200rpm 200GB HD Going to be for gaming?

Just a question:

I picked up a Satellite P105-S9722 last night at CompUSA (thanks to their 20% off sale, I couldn't resist the chance to get this computer for $1600), but I haven't opened it yet, as I'm still trying to decide if it is worth it.

I think the big thing that concerns me is the 4200rpm 200GB HD. I've looked through previous threads about hard drive performance, and the differences between 4200rpm, 5400rpm and 7200rpm, but I'm still trying to figure out just how bad the performance of this laptop would be due to the slow hard drive. In a worst case scenario I was thinking of upgrading the hard drive myself, but I can't find any documentation on what is involved in upgrading the hard drive of a P105 (Toshiba's docs only cover memory module upgrades).

I'm not expecting the hard drive to perform as well as a 5400rpm or 7200rpm hard drive, but I'm wondering more about what the real world impact will be of a slower hard drive? Just slower loading times, or will it cause real hiccups, etc. while playing games as well? How will games like HL2, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, Oblivion, WoW, BF2, etc. perform with a hard drive like this?

-Zadillo

 

The hard drive does not have anything to do with in-game performance; that is dependant on the graphics card, CPU, and amount of RAM you have. The hard drive only affects your loading times.
Considering that the drive is 200GB, the platter density is very high and despite the slow 4,200RPM rotational speed, it should not be that slow. You can swap out the drive for a faster one if you think it is too slow. I say use it for a bit and see how it works out.

 

I didn't even know a 200GB notebook hard drive existed... I thought the largest was 160GB.

As Chaz said it should be okay because of the higher density. I have seen articles about the 160GB Seagate drive (5400rpm) and performs very close to 7200rpm. Its the fastest 5400rpm drive.

Your drive should perform nearly the same as 5400rpm drives so wouldn't worry about it. I believe it must use the new perpendicular technology to pack so much in.

 

Hey zadillo,

My tip: buy an external HD-case for 20 euro's or something. Put your notebook harddrive (200 GB, 4200 rpm) in that HD-case and use it as back-up.

Buy an 7200 rpm 80 GB Seagate and put that in your notebook. I think that would be very wise.

Charlie

 

Cool, thanks for the advice all. I guess I will just give it a shot, and then either replace if it really seems like a big deal (and i think that's good advice to stick the 200GB in an external drive).

 

Anytime Zadillo,

Let us know what your choise will be.

Charlie

 

**** good advise. You should do this immediately unless you don't mind spending hours or even days loading up your apps and games again, and not to mention all the upgrades and updates for those apps and games. I've only had my P100 less than 2 months, but I already dread having to do all those again. That pokey 4200rpm is slow no matter how you cut it. You can put a Ferrari kit on a Yugo, but in the end it's still a Yugo.

 

****, I forgot about the huge 4-hour sale COMPUSA had last night. Ah well, I'm sure they'll have one again the Friday before Veterans day weekend.

 

I wouldn't mind doing it, but I'm still trying to find out how easily I'll be able to replace the HD myself...... from looking at this photo of the underside:



(this is from HexiumVII's P105-S912 review, so it should apply to the P105-S9722 as well I think)

I can't tell, but it looks like that is the hard drive in the upper left-hand corner? If so I get the impression replacing the hard drive would be quite simple. Anyone have any ideas?

-Zadillo

 

Replacing the hard drive in notebooks is usually a simple procedure. I also believe that is the hard drive in the top left corner; remove the screws and take the metal piece off, then take out the drive and put in the new one.

 

Chaz is right.

From left to right: Harddisk at left top, center: memory, center-right-down: WLAN card.

Replacing it is no big problem. Maybe searching the forum for some guides will help.

Charlie

 

I have a 5400 on my P100, I had mind set on upgrading to 7200. Now that you reminded me on what I have to go through, I changed my mind.

Thanks for saving me from going through, I'm really ok with the 5400.

 

LOL, Bobdare, I feel exactly the same way. But one easy way to do it is with a backup software that usually comes with an external HD like Maxtor's Retrospect. Simply back up the old HD then let Retrospect load everything for you EXACTLY the way you had it. May take a couple of hours, but doing it while watching the Raiders or 49ers get their asses kicked again should be relatively painless. I really wanted the 100gb 7200rpm option, but Toshiba wanted an extra $240 for it, so I just opted for a better CPU. But I've seen those speedy HDs in sites like Newegg for as little as $100.

 

4200 is a fully functional speed for a laptop. The reason laptops rarely use a 7200 RPM drive is that they risk overheating with a faster drive. If you have enough memory your hard drive should not have too big an impact on gaming performance. If you are low on RAM however, you will be using more virtual memory which forces your hard drive to do more work.

Your video card and memory are much more critical to gaming performance.

 

Gotcha. Seems like the P105 should be ok in that regard at least then, since it has the 7900GS and 2GB RAM stock.

 

With 2GB RAM I can pretty much guarantee gaming performance won't be impacted. Loading times are quite a bit higher with a slow HDD though, but once you're in the game, it won't really make a difference

 

for a game like oblivion a faster harddisk is recommend, because of all the loading times.

 

Hello,,

I have a P105-S9312 same specs like the one you're talking about, but a Core Duo instead of a Core 2 Duo.

Let me tell you i was also concerned on how the 200GB 4,200RPM would perform, but I couldn't be happier, As Stated I have disabled the Swap File (Page File) since with 2GBs of DDR2 Ram its not needed.

And yes, it performs like a 5,400RPM hdd, and the game loading times are just probably a couple of seconds longer compared to faster drives, but once the game is loaded, I've never experienced any lags or slow downs.

~In conclusion I'd take this 200GB 4200RPM HDD, any day versus having a 120GB 5,400RPM or 100GB 7200RPM..

I can take all my games, music, movies, programs, files.. and still have about 30GB Free or more...

With a Dual Core CPU, 2GB Of Ram.. Windows XP never feels slow, programs open smoothly, even while having Winamp, Bitcomet, eMule, 3 MSN Messenger Sessions, a few WebSites on Both Iexplorer and Fire Fox.. And I've never passed 55% Ram Usage..



In Conclussion, don't be worried