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    7200rpm Hard Drive in NetBook?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by wiivile, Jan 19, 2009.

  1. wiivile

    wiivile Notebook Consultant

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    Hey,

    I'm well aware of the slight tradeoffs in heat/battery life and performance when considering 7200rpm and 5400rpm drives. I was wondering if putting a 7200rpm hard drive, though, in a NetBook (Lenovo S10, to be exact), is a bad idea. Obviously, NetBooks are extremely low-powered notebooks and don't have much in the way of heat dissipation. I'm trying to decide between a 500GB 5400 and 500GB 7200 (when the Seagate 7200.4 comes out -- anyone know?).
     
  2. Citizen86

    Citizen86 Notebook User Guy

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    Personally, I'd play it safe and use a 5400rpm drive. With the speed of a netbook, the benefits of a 7200 would probably be pretty negligable.
     
  3. jisaac

    jisaac Notebook Deity

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    lol i think you got it the wrong way round.... with netbooks generally having lower performance than other notebooks, an upgrade to a 320gb or 500gb 7200rpm hd should be quite significant. go for it bro
     
  4. Templesa

    Templesa Notebook Deity

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    Yeah, in this case with most Netbooks 1GB of RAM, it may actually increase performance.
     
  5. wiivile

    wiivile Notebook Consultant

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    Anyone know when Seagate plans to release the 500GB 7200rpm drive? I'll probably go with that as long as it doesn't create an absurd amount of heat/vibration in the NetBook.
     
  6. afhstingray

    afhstingray Notebook Prophet

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    i think vibration would be a much bigger issue than heat
     
  7. jisaac

    jisaac Notebook Deity

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    well i dont think that should be much of a problem cos the 500gb 7200rpm drives are gonna be 250gb per platter right? So with 2 platters heat/vibration should be very similar to the current 320gb 7200rpm hds..... but i have to warn you its going to take a long time for these drives to be economical... firstly they have to be released, secondly you have to wait for a while for prices to go down to acceptable... i suggest u wait until they are released then get a 320gb 7200rpm hd (since their prices will be driven down).
     
  8. jerry66

    jerry66 Notebook Deity

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    i have a hitachi 320 gb 7200 rpm in my hp 2133 , works well , no heat issues battery life same as before with 160 gb 5400 rpm
     
  9. Michel.K

    Michel.K 167WAISIQ

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    I don't think you'll notice any batterylife issues (it'll probably the same as you have now as the newer HDD's are more power efficient) and they generate less heat than older 7200rpm drives thanks to better build quality.

    And i also think you'd notice a pretty big increase in performance when it comes to multitasking and loading apps or such. So i'd say go for 7200rpm. And as someone said, buy a 320GB 7200rpm today as they don't cost a fortune and use it aslong as you can stand it untill prices on 500GB 7200rpm are going down.
     
  10. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    definitely go for a 320gb 7200rpm drive. The more performance the better.
    In my opinion the 7K320 is the quietest of all of the 320gb 7200rpm drives cause of its cover design.
    As others noted the latest generation drives are all very power efficient, so you should not notice much of a battery life difference.

    K-TRON
     
  11. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    The Seagate 7200.3 320GB is actually more power efficient than many 5400rpm drives. Check Tomshardware for more info.