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    HP 8710w, need more HD space. What about 250GB 5400rpm?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by opresterud, Oct 9, 2007.

  1. opresterud

    opresterud Newbie

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    I just got a HP 8710w, delivered with a Seagate 7200.2 120GB drive. It is far too small for my use. I have ordered the 200GB Hiatchi 7K200 drive, but it is backlogged for a while. It could also really have been some GBs larger...

    So I am wondering about a 250GB 5400rpm drive, have access to Hitachi 5K250, Samsung HM250JI and Western WD2500BEVS. The Samsung and Hitachi drives are in stock at the suppliers.

    Would I regret going for a 5400rpm drive....? Have used 7200rpm drives as main drive in laptops since 2001, but I guess the recent 5400rpm drives are way faster then the first-gen 7200rpm IBM drive I once had in the Thinkpad A21p...

    My use is development work, a lot of compiling and running a few concurrent VMWare virtual machines at the same time. This together with regular Outlook/IE7 use.
     
    opresterud, Oct 9, 2007
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  2. sveilside

    sveilside Notebook Guru

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    sveilside, Oct 9, 2007
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  3. opresterud

    opresterud Newbie

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    No, no BestBuy here.

    I am also most wondering about the speed difference, since I could definitively need those extra 50GB of space.
     
    opresterud, Oct 9, 2007
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  4. win32asmguy

    win32asmguy Moderator Moderator

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    I would suggest waiting for the 7k200. Your compile times are going to be even slower than with your current 120GB if you get a 5400rpm drive, as those drives are not good at doing short random reads/writes.
    Another option might be to wait for a 5400rpm 320GB hard drive. Toshiba is supposed to release those in November. Of course, by then maybe 250GB 7200rpm drives will be available too :)
    I picked up the Best Buy deal because it was a great deal for an even better performing drive than the Seagate 120GB 7200rpm I had.
     
    win32asmguy, Oct 9, 2007
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  5. opresterud

    opresterud Newbie

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    Have anyone announced higher-than 200GB 7200rpm drives?

    I just ordered the 250GB 5400rpm drive. I am used to do work on a HP nw8000, with an even older 7200rpm drive, so I guess might survive. As soon as larger 7200rpm drives becomes available, I will swap.
     
    opresterud, Oct 9, 2007
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  6. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    In general, a higher density drive with a slightly slower speed will perform as well as the next lowest drive capacity with a faster speed. As in...my 160@5400 and 100@7200 drives perform the same...that kind of thing.

    So 200GB@7200 will perform about as fast as a 250@5400 and vise versa.
     
    Greg, Oct 9, 2007
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  7. fabarati

    fabarati Frorum Obfuscator

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    Well, I have (had) the Samsung. It's very fast indeed. Unfortunatly mine was defective, so I'm exchanging it
     
    fabarati, Oct 9, 2007
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  8. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    What was the problem? Is it related to this thread?

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Oct 10, 2007
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  9. fabarati

    fabarati Frorum Obfuscator

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    I just had the click. Performance was fairly stable (it started out at a high transfer rate for instance, and kept it, with only a few spikes). It also completely saturates the Usb port. What I'm worries about is that My retailer won't finde the problem. It seems to work fine on a usb-sata/ide adapter i have (not an enclosure).
     
    fabarati, Oct 10, 2007
    #9