5400 rpm, or 7200 rpm... that is the question

or slightly more specific: 250GB 5400 rpm or 160GB 7200 rpm (+$50)?
is the performance boost worth it? what are the heat and battery factors?
thanks

 

Well it depends upon the HDD actually - its make/brand.
Because if the 250GB Drive is the WD2500BEVS, it would have the same max power consumption as the Fujitsu MHW2160BJ and the Toshiba MK1651GSY 160GB 7200RPM drives....But the 250GB Hitachi 5K250 has a siginificantly lower max power consumption....

Similiarly the Drive temps and Heat Produced will vary from one drive to another....

So you'll be better off getting the cheapest HDD configuration, and then upgrade to a HDD of your choice....The after-market HDD will not be covered under the notebook manufacturer's warranty but will be covered by the HDD manufacturer's warranty.

A 5400RPM drive will be relatively cooler, and will emit less noise.
A similar capacity 7200RPM drive will be quicker and will also have lower access times.
The faster HDD will provide lower OS boot times, and will also result in quicker application startups.

Reference Chart

 

If maximum battery life is important to you, keep in mind that the 7200rpm will use a bit more juice than the 5400rpm....and generate a bit more heat, too.

I have a 7200rpm drive and honesty don't notice much of a difference during regular use.

 

Keep in mind that the 250GB 5400RPM is a larger capacity drive, increasing storage density and making the difference between the two drives negligible. Keep the 250GB drive, especially since the other drive is $50 more.

 

If you would compare the WD1600BEKT and the WD2500BEVS, the former would simply crush the latter in benchmarks and real-world usage....

(It is hard to say which HDD will come pre-installed in a system, so better off asking people who already own that notebook with the similar config.)

 

Thanks for the help, does anybody know what HDDs the hp dv5t comes with?
especially the 250gb 5400 and the 160gb 7200.
thanks

 

Also, what kind of boot/application launch time saves am I looking at? I assume it's like a 1-5 second gain which is really not worth it... I'm not gonna be involved in any stressful bank robberies or ransom collections and need my launch times to be lickety split.
I think I'll go with the 250 gb and if I want further down the road I can upgrade (also when large capacity 7200 drives are cheaper!, or solid state...)

wont after-market upgrades usually void the manufacturers warranty though?

 

Things like RAM and HDD won't void warranty but things like CPU/GPU (if possible) will likely void the warranty (check with the mfgr to be sure though).

 

That's the problem. No one knows. The 250/5400rpm could be faster than the 160GB/7200rpm. (Although the chance is small)

It would be better to go for the cheapest option and then upgrade yourself. Check my sig for recommedations which hard drive to get.

You can put the original drive in an enclosure, so you have an external drive.

 

Not sure what those model numbers represent. Is the WD1600BEKT a 7200 rpm drive? And the other a 5400 rpm drive? If so, you're saying the 7200 rpm drive is faster, is that right? Even though the 7200 rpm drive is lower density than the other drive, it would still be faster? Thanks for clarifying.

 

1600BEKT is a 7200rpm one platter drive, 2500BEVS is a 5400rpm two platter drive. So rotational speed and data density are higher on the 1600BEKT, making it very fast.

(I'm not Andy but happy to answer anyway )

 

Thanks for the info. I'm thinking of getting an XPS 1530, with either 250GB 5400 rpm OR 160GB 7200 rpm hard disk drive. I don't know what brand/model they use, so will just have to take my chances. Think I'll go with the 160GB 7200 rpm drive.

 

Or get the cheapest drive and then upgrade it yourself. That's what I would do. It's cheaper and you probably get a better drive.

 

I'm sure that would work if you know what you're doing. One person's "it's simple" is another person's "now what did I do wrong?" I don't know how to swap out a disk drive & after asking a million questions & making a bunch of mistakes, it probably wouldn't be worth it for me. I'll leave that to the experts.

 

With the help of this forum you can pull it of.