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    500gb hdd 5400rpm any good?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by trvelbug, Mar 29, 2009.

  1. trvelbug

    trvelbug Notebook Prophet

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    hi guys

    planning on getting a new notebook soon, maybe a sager 8662.
    im thinking wether a 500gb 5400 hdd is too slow. ive been hearing that 5400rpm for hdd's bigger than 320gb may be a bit too slow. watya guys think??

    would getting a 320 gb 7200 be a better deal?
    unfortunately the 8662 doesnt come with dual hdd bays. it wouldve been great doing raid 0 on such a lappy.
     
    trvelbug, Mar 29, 2009
    #1
  2. swarmer

    swarmer beep beep

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    Actually the larger capacity makes it faster due to the denser disc platters.

    It depends. If extra speed is more important to you than extra capacity, then yes. If extra capacity is more important to you than extra speed, then no.
     
    swarmer, Mar 29, 2009
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  3. idiotpilot

    idiotpilot Notebook Evangelist

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    i have used 320 5400 hdd's in raid and the benchmarks for them were surprisingly fast. I have also used a 500 5400 and it wasn't all too bad. In my experience 7200 rpm hard drives suck up too much battery life and get too hot to put the laptop on my lap. It comes down to whether you prefer speed or space.
     
    idiotpilot, Mar 29, 2009
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  4. Hirohata

    Hirohata GBF Danchou

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    A 7200rpm 320GB HDD is definitely slightly faster than a 5400rpm 500GB HDD, but what it comes down to is, do you prefer more space or faster speed? If you want both, get the Seagate ST9500420AS 7200.4 instead.
     
    Hirohata, Mar 29, 2009
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  5. insaneXIII

    insaneXIII Notebook Consultant

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    I hope that the 8662 has a case revision to help the high HDD temps, because my 320 5400 gets to 60 degrees every now and then.
     
    insaneXIII, Mar 29, 2009
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  6. Hirohata

    Hirohata GBF Danchou

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    It should have a case revision besides the quad support IIRC. I remember someone mentioning it in the Sager and Clevo section.
     
    Hirohata, Mar 29, 2009
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  7. ViciousXUSMC

    ViciousXUSMC Master Viking NBR Reviewer

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    I would prefer the 5400rpm 500gb drive to a 7200rpm 320gb drive.

    The sequencial read performance will be very close, and if you take good care of your computer and keep it defragged most of your big read jobs can be setup that way.

    The random seek and pure raw power of the 7200rpm will be better but not enough to offset the price per storage value of the 5400rpm drive IMO.

    There is finally 500gb 7200rpm drives now, but they are not cheap, I do think the 500gb 5400rpm drives are the best way to go.
     
    ViciousXUSMC, Mar 30, 2009
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  8. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

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    320GB 7200RPM drives will be slower than 500GB 5400RPM when you continue to fill it up.

    When it's new, 320GB 7200RPM will be slightly faster.
     
    jackluo923, Mar 30, 2009
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  9. Gaara42

    Gaara42 Notebook Consultant

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    I currently have a 500gb 5400rpm in my MSI-1651 and it runs great for my purposes, can run most games well and I'm rather have the extra space than a slight increase in speed, seems to take awhile to defrag though...(then again I was coming from a 150gb HDD...)
     
    Gaara42, Mar 30, 2009
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  10. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

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    LOL @ taking a long time to defrag.

    Try testing how long it would take to defrag a 1TB hdd with 85% fragmentation with 3% free space. LOL
     
    jackluo923, Mar 30, 2009
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  11. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Go for the 320GB 7200RPM, you can get the Hitachi for dirt cheap ($50 on sale). And when you fill it up, it will still be fine. Unless you need more than 295GB (actual size is 298GB in binary, 99% full).
     
    sgogeta4, Mar 30, 2009
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  12. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

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    LOL.. you obviously haven't experienced the pain of using a framented filled up harddrive.

    Unoptimized and fragmented filled hdd have throughtput of a little over 5MB/s compared to 100MB+/s when it's new.
     
    jackluo923, Mar 30, 2009
    #12