HD: 320 GB/5400 or 160 GB/7200?

I am looking to buy a new Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop. On the HD upgrades, they have options of:

- 320 GB with 5400 rpm, or

- 160 GB with 7200 rpm

With everything else being equal, which one should I choose for faster performance? I know 7200 is faster, but is it still so much faster when the 5400 option has double the size in GB?

Thanks!

 

My preference is always speed over capacity, you can always get an external portable 160GB HDD. In time, even 320GB might not be sufficient and you can get an even bigger external HDD.

 

You'l have to read the reviews. I know what you mean; with 320GB there might be double data density and that might make it faster to transfer data, but it also depends on the number of platter and so on. I would try and find out the brand of the HDD, and look for reviews.

 

I would always go with speed and obviously so would anyone, but I guess you are wondering if the difference are negligible, in the 10% or something...well, haha, I don't know the answer to that.
I can say that I experienced a 30% increase in speed from 5400 to 7200, but that was a year and a half ago when 100-120GB was the highest you could go - today it's different...
I would suggest either the fastets drive + an external 2.5 WD passport 250GB
or
the well reviewed Western Digital Scorpio WD2500BEVS 250GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150
Check Tom's Hardware test chasrts, it does really well
http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage25.html?modelx=33&model1=425&model2=414&chart=154
NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136123
and well put review their site...
"Highly recommended for system upgrades. The best hard drive for the money. Even though its a 5400 rpm, benchmarks on Tomshardware.com shows it beat almost every other 7200 rpm 2.5" drive. Plus you get 250 GB's which isn't available in a 7200."

Edit: Oh crap, you meant the HD upgrades on the Dell site for configuring the 1520! I don't know what drives they are offering so I can't say.
I ordered my 1520 a few minutes ago and chose the 80GB HDD since I intend to replace it immediately.

Don't forget to use the Dell coupons, it saved me $425!!
Use code CS0R$WQL4MZG22 to save $425 off any $1,399.00+ Dell Inspiron notebook. (valid 10/16/2007 12:00:00 AM - 11/1/2007 11:59:59 PM)

 

Or get yourself a 64GB SSD .. VRROOOM .. !!

 

go for the 320 gb if your laptop supports it , it is probably faster due to the high density and 2x the space , cant really go wrong , if its not faster it will match the speed of the 7200 or manby only be a tiny bit slower.
the WD olphus reccomended is a good option... if you want to know what your getting , otherwise take a chance and run hd tune...

 

I have the said Scorpio drive in my HP and it's fast enough for me. The high density makes up for quicker access since it doesn't have to search as much. The data is readily available and the read head doesn't have to do move as far.

 

Well, if you need the space you need the space, but if 160 is fine itll be worth it and faster.

Hope I could Help

 

I also prefer speed over capacity, but 120GB over speed all the time .

 

I chose to go with the 320 because I am convinced it will be within a few % (due to data density, etc, which others can explain far better than I) of the speed, and because right now Dell is having a special on it (As Advertised > Online > Notebook pick >"Better" pick. You can have your CSR force the $425 coupon onto it, too, and get a quite a nice price. If I hadn't gotten a color or a higher resolution screen, I would be paying $1130 before upgrading the ram aftermarket.

 

I would say that the 320GB 5200RPM would be faster because of density than the 160GB 7200RPM and it is bigger too.

 

More rpm will ALWAYS give better access times. It is just plain physics and it does not have to do anything with density etc.
Transfer rates on the other hand will be comparable.
As most system operations depend on access time (you can read how faster an SSD is with half the transfer rate of a normal disk) the 7200 drive will be always faster.