The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    80gb SATA 5400rpm vs 60 gb ATA 7200rpm

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by cward0625, Mar 23, 2005.

  1. cward0625

    cward0625 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    7
    Messages:
    113
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I am looking at getting the Asus z71v, but am unsure about what harddrive to get. I could get the 60gb ATA 7200rpm with it or I can buy it without a hard drive and get a 80gb SATA 5400rpm. I was wondering what differences there would be besides storage size. I.E. SATA vs ATA, and the rpms.
    thanks
     
    cward0625, Mar 23, 2005
    #1
  2. mtnmasher

    mtnmasher Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    39
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    The burst transfer rate of a Gen-I SATA drive is 150MBps. For an ATA drive, the burst transfer rate of depends on what kind of interface it has. For example, UDMA-133 is 133MBps, UDMA-100 is 100MBps, etc. So, the burst transfer rate of a Gen-I SATA drive slightly faster than the fastest ATA drive. The problem is that the burst transfer rate only determines how fast data that is already in the cache or buffer is transfered across the bus. Slight increases don't make much of a difference in the real world.

    The real limiting factor is how fast the data gets off the media and into the buffer, which is usually significantly slower than the burst transfer rate. The things that determine that are Seek time and Rotational speed. A 7200rpm drive obviously has faster rotational speed, and usually has a faster seek time.

    I would put my money into the 7200rpm drive is performance is what you are after.



     
    mtnmasher, Apr 11, 2005
    #2