200 @ 7200 or 250 @ 5400?

I have been looking for a new laptop for gaming for quite some time now and so I have been trying to get my specs set. I am on my hard drive, and I was wondering if you would go with the faster hard drive or 50 GB more space? For those that have used a faster hard drive, is it faster and worth it?

 

IMO always go for a 7200. Sure you don't get quite as much space but really you will want the extra speed in read and write that a 7200 offers. Especially in a gaming rig, you don't want your HD to be a bottleneck (which it definitely will be at 5400!).

Also, if you really need the extra space for backing up files, just spend a little money later on for an external. Much less expensive, and at 200 GB internally you already will have plenty of room for games, music, videos, etc.

Hope this helps!

 

If you can get your hands on a good 5400RPM 320GB hard drive, it should be about as fast as the 7200RPM 200GB drive.

 

Depends on what you're using your computer for, and how much the upgrade will cost. If it's $100 or more, I would just get the 5400. For normal everyday tasks, you really wont notice a difference. Even then, if you're doing high-end gaming, you might notice a little more loading time, I don't think it's that much of a big deal personally if I get a couple more seconds of load time.

 

Not entirely true. I know that since it would have a higher density that it would have be similar in read or write (can't remember which) but not in both. So the 7200 wins regardless except on storage.

 

I'm pretty sure read and write are both comparable, but the 7200RPM drives have better seek times, so if the disk's fragmented the 7200RPM drive will be faster.

 

They say high density are as fast with sustained read/writes. The 5400 falls short on RA/seek times. If this is for gaming very little difference. As a matter of fact 0 difference in gaming as going to a @7200 or @5400 are unacceptable. Load times between scenes are all you will see improvement on. Not game play!

 

As stated above, you're not likely to see much of a difference between the 200gb 7200rpm and the 320gb 5400rpm for most day to day things, especially gaming. However ,you WILL notice the increase in storage space.

Now in reference to your original comparison of the 200gb 7200rpm and the 250gb 5400rpm. Again you're not going to see any difference in FPS for gaming, but you will experience faster load times as well as snappier performance in general. The areal density on the 250gb isn't enough to make up for the slower RPM.

 

Go with the 320GB 5400RPM drive.... cheaper than the 200GB 7200RPM drive, just as fast, and much more storage!

 

It just depends on what models you're talking about. Hitachi 7K200 200GB will outperform any 320GB/5400rpm drive in real life situations. You can pick up the 7K200 for $95 here.

Of the choices listed in the poll I would definetely go for the 200GB/7200rpm. The 250GB is not a good performer in general.

 

it seems the only options are the two stated above. So basically it is between the hitachi 7k200, or seagate 7200.2 and the wd/hitachi/seagate 250gb 5400 drives.
I would go for the 7200rpm drive becaue it will indeed be faster than the 5400rpm drive. If you wanted comparable speed, you would need the 320gb 5400rpm drive, but still then it is only comparable in speed to the 7200 drive. Go for the 7200 if it is the same price. If the 5400 is like $50 cheaper, than go for the 5400 cause it is not economically smart to spend $50 for the 7200rpm drive over the 5400rpm drive, since you can buy the 7200drive for like $100.

K-TRON