Hard Drives: Which one?

Hello,
So I'm currently customizing a laptop and I'm not sure if I should choose the 1TB 5400RPM HDD or the 750GB 7200RPM HDD with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection, (Not sure how effective HP's hard drive protection is.

Any advice is appreciated!

 

I would buy the smallest, cheapest drives that fill all drive bays and when I received the unit, I would change those drives to SSD's and put the mechanical drives shipped with the system into external drive enclosures to use as backup storage.

If you really have to choose between the two you list: I would pick the much faster performing one (for O/S, program and data usage): the 750GB 7200RPM HDD.

If you really need 1TB of storage - I recommend an external USB 3.0 1TB or 2TB HDD along with an internal SSD (240GB/256GB Intel 520 Series, Sandisk Extreme or Crucial M4 - or, 512GB M4 - no other ~512GB SSD's are worth buying if maximum performance is your goal).

HP HDD protection is as effective as any other software solution: it doesn't depend on the software doing it's job - it depends on the angle, height and velocity the computer hits as to whether or not the HDD is/stays protected.

Good luck.

 

Thank you!

 

You're welcome.

Just to clarify why I would be buying the 'smallest cheapest drives to fill all drive bays':

it is to ensure that all the proper drive caddies and the necessary wiring (SATA/power connectors and adaptors) are shipped and available (to me) when I switch HDD's and/or SSD's.

I have seen too many dual drive bay notebooks that shipped with one drive and the secondary drive bay not have the caddy, wiring or necessary connectors for the second hard drive readily available.

Easier to spend $50 more for an extra 'cheap' drive and have all the parts you'll need for the life of your system.

 

So have I, the notable exception to this is my M6700 which came with the caddy and all the screws needed for the second drive even though i ordered only one. I made sure it came with the caddy before purchasing with only one drive though.

 

Thanks for the support tijo.

Just a question: how much did the M6700 cost you though?

 

Let's just say that it was expensive, not too much given that i pretty much ordered the stock configuration save a few extras. For the level of support you get, definitely worth it if you can afford it though.

My G73 came with both caddies, but only because i had a model with two drives and the stock Asus caddy is rather expensive which led people who bought models with a single drive to look for alternatives. Some older N series from Asus also required a cable that was almost impossible to find, the G74 came with the required cable i think, but i'm not certain. If you can find the info about that on the web, all the better, but when you don't know, better order with two drives if you have that option.

EDIT: Not to mention that you can convert the stock configuration drives into externals for another 10-30$ and use them for backups.

 

1TB 5400RPM HDD and 750GB 7200RPM HDD perform similarly at least the WD blue 1tb i have doe (performs similarly to 7200rmp drives) the 1TB has a performance boost due to it's high density.

 

the 1TB and 750GB should both get freefall protection (or the HP protection whatever they like to call it) , it just that their wording is crap.

 

Get the 1TB drive. Their performance is similar, and everyone always wants more storage space.