Hard Drive upgrade options (speed vs size again)

So i've missed this forum since i bought my hp dv9500t over a year ago, and now have a new question concerning christmas money...

I Currently have Vista Home Premium installed on a Seagate 7200.2 120gb drive running applications, OS, etc, and the occasional dvd rip (from my own legal dvds, to take with me mind you )

My second drive is the western digital 160gb 5400 rpm hp sent with the system. It holds my user folders including 95gb of raw DV footage (this is my primary video editing station right now). While this is fine and dandy as a setup, we all know how data grows to fill the space... 1 Hour of DV=around 13gb and i could maybe squeeze 1 more project onto that drive before i'd have to move some files off my laptop i'd rather keep with me.

Now, of course i have plenty of other storage locations, a directly connected desktop with 3 hard drives (including a my neglected raptor), and an external freeagent 320gb via firewire, but i would rather increase the storage internally, and be able to access some of my older footage without being at my desk, hence the space upgrade.

I'm looking at the new seagate 7200.3 320gb with freefall sensor (found a great deal on it), and will probably go with that to replace the 160gb secondary drive in my lappy. My question is, would a larger capacity, slower drive make a huge difference as a non o/s drive? or would the large data requirements of multiple DV streams and large file copies negate the free space? Also, the new 7200.3 looks to be faster than the old one... would it make a better o/s drive?

thanks for your suggestions in advance!

 

I say if your OS drive is already a 7200RPM drive, for storage a 5400RPM is a good idea if you need the extra space.

 

I'm looking at the 320GB 7200 rpm drive. I heard Seagate has a great warranty of 5 yrs. Still not sure about Seagate or WD.

 

WD3200BEKT is slightly faster according to review in my signature (HDD link 2).

I would use a small first partition as your OS drive, the rest for other stuff.

 

I believe Seagate warranty is now 3 years, no longer 5, unless you buy the Momentus drives in a retail kit. WD should still be 5 years on the Black series.

 

well, based on the reviews and prices i've seen i'll stick with the seagate, but maybe i should hold out for the 500gb when its price drops, i'm always needing more space...

as for partitioning, it makes no difference with my two drives, i've been able to wipe my c:, clean install and be back up and running in an afternoon because nothing of value is on that drive.

 

still in the market, and the 7200.4 500gb drive is too pricey for me right now, but i'm wondering if a 500gb 5400rpm would slow me down to store raw dv, and edit from... or do i need a 7200rpm for multiple dv streams? (I haven't made the jump to high-def, and probably won't until after film school)

 

The 500gb 5400rpm drives are actually pretty fast, almost on par with the 320gb 7200rpm drives.
Please make sure to get the WD5000BEVT because that is the fastest 500gb drive on the market today.

K-TRON

 

If you just want to space, then I think the 500 GB 5400 rpm drive is best for you.

If you also run apps like Adobe Premiere for your DV videos, then I think you should wait for the 500 GB 7200 rpm from Seagate.

Personally I have my eyes on the 500 GB 7200 rpm.

 

i run sony vegas pro 8 (it's legit, unlike many people's copies), which is light on the resources except during rendering, hoping the 4gb of ram i have in the mail will speed things up too (less reading from disk)

the 500gb 7200rpm's cost is a little steep for a drive i know will drop in price in the near future, especially if i don't need the speed... but dang that would be nice... but so would an external raid 0 array running 15k drives on esata

in other news, i found a nice deal on an open box 750gb external drive, cheap enough that i could sell my 320 gb freeagent pro to a friend and upgrade to that for almost no cost