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    RPM vs Battery Life (with other questions)

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by xxsprint, Jul 7, 2008.

  1. xxsprint

    xxsprint Notebook Geek

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    How much is the RPM proportional to battery life? Would I get a good amount more battery life from 5400 rpm than 7200 rpm? However, would the computer be a good amount more speedy with the 7200 rpm than the 5400 rpm?

    Also, I notice that the solid state drives, regardless of their GB, are generally way more expensive than any of the normal hard disk drives. Will a 32 GB SSD really be faster (and overall, better) than a 200 GB normal hard disk drive?
     
    xxsprint, Jul 7, 2008
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  2. hotrent1

    hotrent1 Notebook Consultant

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    The newer generation hard drives for laptops are designed to save battery life and give you faster read and write.
    Solid State drives are getting faster and faster. There are multi cell technology and singlecell technology. There are ide ssd's, sata ssd's, an sata II SSD's. The price will go down as they become more mainstream. Dell offers 64 gig sataII for 1239.00. Pretty steep for smaller HD. But if you want that speed, durability, low power consumption. If you do, go with a trusted name. I did some research and was going to purchase supertalent 120 gig, but 4 out of 5 people said they died within a month or two. I preordered the new 320 gig, 7200 rpm, 3gig R/W, 16mb cache, 2.5 form factor, with free-fall sensor, Western Digital Black Scorpion. They have one available now without the freefall sensor.
     
    hotrent1, Jul 7, 2008
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  3. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    A new generation 32gb ssd will be faster than a 7200rpm drive. However the price of the SSD's right now is a major turn off.
    The difference in battery life between a 5400rpm drive and a 7200rpm drive is fairly minimal if you are comparing drives which came out withing the last 1.5 yrs or so.
    A 7200rpm drive like the 7K200 uses 0.8Amps of current. A comparable speed 320gb 5400rpm drive will use anywhere from 0.65-0.85Amps. So you can have a more efficient and faster 5400rpm drive than a 7200rpm drive.

    If the money is limited, I would look at the Hitachi 7K200 or any of the 320gb 5400rpm drives, as they are all very fast and power efficient.
    At most, the difference in battery life is 10 minutes over the course of say a 3hr battery life.

    Also, before upgrading, you need to know what interface the drive uses. If it is a SATA drive you can use either of the drives recommended.
    If your laptop is older and uses PATA/ATA/IDE, I recommend getting a SAMSUNG HM160HC as it is the fastest drive for older laptops.

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Jul 7, 2008
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