Seagate 7200.2 vs 5400.3

So, I read up on the posts regarding the 7200.2 drives and people have been comparing it to the 5400.3, etc.

From what I could tell on Seagate's website, they really can't be compared unless:
A. the laptop acccepts both SATA and PATA drives
B. there is some magical adapter that will let me use an SATA drive in my PATA laptop (without having the drive stick out).

Am I missing some important information here, where maybe there is a PATA version of the 7200.2 family coming out?

Thinking about adding an extra year on my 6809 and the 160Gb 5400.3 is the front runner.
Also, anyone know a source for the DTR CPUs that I can use with my laptop other than ebay?

Thanks.

 

Uh... Seagate homepage is wrong (which annoys me). I have a Momentus 120 gb 5400.3 sata drive (ST9120822AS - the s at the end stand for sata). But i can't find any IDE 7200.2 drives, and until bigger than 100 gb 7200 drives come out (which is soon) 160gb 5400 give you more storage with only slightly less performance

 

Newegg mainly sells 7200 RPM hard drives in SATA form. What port type is your laptop, IDE or SATA?

There are plenty of reviews online from places like Anandtech comparing 2.5" 5400 RPM vs. 7200 RPM hard drives; do a quick google search and you'll find plenty of benchmark results.

I'll give you the summary - 160 GB hold a lot more space, and approaches 7200 RPM speeds. However, in almost everything, the 100 GB 7200 RPM hard drive is about 5% faster than the 160 GB hard drive. The question you have to ask yourself is - do I want more storage capacity or more speed? The 7200 RPM will beat the 5400 RPM in load/write times, so you don't have to wait as long for a file to load, and also in data access time, but the 5400 RPM will wipe out the 7200 RPM in storage capacity while getting close to the 7200 RPM's read and write times.

 

the 7200.2 is supposed to be available from online retailers 4-20 for around 180$

All the online retailers have dummy pages ready right now.

 

Decided to get the 5400.3 since it was only $120.
Figure I wouldn't be spending the price for a 7200.2 for a laptop that's outlived it's gaming usefulness.

Thanks.

 

A good choice, best bang for the buck in your situation.

 

cant wait til the 7200.2 goes on sale. Then the 7200.1 will drop in price.

 

I wonder if they'll go down much?

Your avatar freaks me out - like you're personally looking at me disapprovingly!