Which hard drive to get

I plan on ordering a Gateway P-171X FX Edition soon and I when I get it I want to either replace the 250gb 5400rpm with either a 200gb 7200 rpm hard drive or add in another 250gb 5400rpm hard drive and configure raid 0. What would give me better performance for the cost? Suggestions on what brand to buy the hard drive from is also welcome. Thank you in advance.

 

i would personally just stick the 5400 rpm drives, they are not as hot, run cooler and consume less power. plus if you raid 0 them you can get a small performance boost.

 

Here are the results from my HDtune if they help you at all on comparisons.

Running 2x200 gig - 7200 spin Hitachi in Raid 0 in a P-6831FX

 

Dartchen where did you go to get the Hitachi drives? I'm looking for the cheapest but most reliable outlet that I can purchase these drives from...

 

I just went with good old newegg.com. They weren't cheap but with the price of the laptop it gave me quite a bit of flexibility on spending for upgrades =)

 

Performance wise I would go with 2 x 7200rpm 200gb drives or 2 x 320 seagate momentus drives. Sell the 250 one.

Because of platter density, the 320s can actually transfer data faster than the 200gb 7200 rpm drives however, the initial boot times of apps will still be better with the 7200 rpm drives.

 

I think what I'm going to do is buy one 200gb 7200rpm hard drive and replace the 250gb 5400rpm hard drive and then eventually buy another 200gb 7200rpm drive.

 

How come your HD Tune stats are so out of wack with mine?

Dual Hitachi 200gb, 7,200s in Raid 0 - Volume Write-Back Cache Enabled (in Intel Storage Matrix Console).

 

Great deal at Bestbuy 200gb 7200rpm Hitachi, $10 cheaper than a WD scorpio 250gb 5400rpm. Thats not all it's a kit you get an external enclosure and cloning software, place the new HD into ex. enclosure plug into USB, run software and it copies everything off your old drive (OS< etc.) cloning it. When done remove old drive, then remove new HD from ex. enclosure install in laptop fire it up and thats it, sooo easy, but wait thats not all put your old 250gb 5400 into the external enclosure and use it as external storage drive. I installed it and windows score raised from 5.2 to 5.5, and no clicking.noises like the old HD. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8682222&type=product&id=1197679249375

 

Great, I think that's what I will do.