A bit of spare cash.. new HDD or SDD?

i bought an ASUS G1S with the money the insurance company gave me when the robbers came in.. they smashed my iMac.. didnt steal it.. smashed it... threw it down a flight of stairs to be specific.. anyway the G1S came with a 4200rpm instead of a 5400 so the shop said its their mistake and will trade it no problems..

i was thinking of spending a little extra and upgrading to a 7200rpm.. i have done a bit of research but am still unsure as wether to shell out for a SDD.. i can deal with 128GB.. i saw one advertised for about $725AUD 135MB/s read 120 write

I also will recieve about $300-400 for a PSP that was pocketed during the robbery so that will go towards whatever i end up buying..

i guess my question is should i pay for an SSD or an HDD but get 7200rpm.. or should i keep my money and accept the trade the shop is offering for the 5400rpm

if anyone has any experience with them any comments would be greatly appreciated

 

Maybe Bill Gates sent Microsoft employees in to smash your iMac

Sorry, I'm sure having all that happen is terrible. Glad to hear you were reimbursed. Anyway, I guess it depends on if you want the speed or size. You can probably get a large 7200rpm HDD for much less than a 128gb SSD. I would get the normal HDD, but that's just me. I'm sure SSD fanboy's will be in this thread soon telling you different things

 

First off I would get 5400 rpm disk and see how it preforms, you might be satisfied with that, if not the you can get the 7200rpm or SSD and have the 5400rpm in an encloser rather than the 4200.

just my $.02

 

I would stick to the normal HDD at the moment. 320GB at either 7200rpm or 5400rpm gives good performance. SSD wins at random reads but write performance isn't so wonderful.

I've read that there are issues with the OCZ Core SSD, which set a new level for price / performance, so the SSD technology is still clearly evolving.

John

 

As an upgrader to the WD Scorpio Black, I'd say that 7200 RPM/320 GB is the way to go. SSD's are really much too expensive to be feasible right now, imo. Spend the rest of the money on more ram, or something.

 

Its your preference, if you need space and battery life, stick with the 5400, if your not bothered about battery life go for the 7200.

Dunno much about SSDs, only they're expensive.

 

I'm an SSD Fan and whatever u do I will encourage u NOT to buy an SSD at this time..as they will be getting bigger storage space, and possible price reductions in the future.

 

I also like SSDs and wanted one myself with my recent harddrive purchase but, choose against it. It is too expensive at the moment. Also, I am not sure about what kind of SSD they would give you, but if it is an OCZ Core SSD, I would be careful. There are a lot of reliability complaints about it on the OCZ support forum. Don't know the technological reasons why, but there are a lot of reports of drive failures very soon after purchase(like 2 weeks).

 

You could have a look at the 128GB OCZ Core but, as others have mentioned, it has some weaknesses in write speed. It's still way faster than traditional HDDs with booting and loading applications though. The problems mainly show up in multi tasking situations.

If you want to go for a HDD I suggest a WD3200BEVT, the fastest 320GB/5400rpm drive. Or even faster, a WD3200BEKT 320GB/7200rpm.

Hitachi 7K320 is the fastest HDD but some people have reported noise and vibration. Which may not be a problem in your specific Asus because it's not so thin and light.

 

Writing speed wouldn't be much of a concern as to reading speed is. The 64g OCZ DDS is a good deal for a bootup drive atm.
But if storage is your priority just get a good sized 5k.

How soon are you expecting that future? Cause it is important for the decision.

 

According to all the reviews I've seen read speeds of the OCZ Core are very good, it is small random writes that are the problem.

For more in formation: http://www.alternativerecursion.info/?p=106
http://www.guru3d.com/article/ocz-core-sata-64gb-solid-state-drive-review/9

 

you guys have been so much help haha thankyou very much
i really wasnt expecting so much support thanks again..

i think im gonna hit up the 7200 rpm WD.. it will cost me a bit more however that is nothing compared to the SSD
it WAS the OCZ core that i was looking at btw, i couldnt remember the brand at the time
thanks for all your help