Upgrading HDD...need advice

i am thinking to get a new HDD because my laptop hitachi 250GB HDD capacity is already too low..

and after researching for awhile...i narrowed down my options..into two..

500GB with 5400RPM
320GB with 7200RPM

can anyone suggest which is better? i will be using it to install many new and old games...so lots of disk space will be consumed..

so im quite confused , which one should i proritize first? speed or capacity?

any suggestions of good HDD models? im not specific of certain brands as long as it performs nicely.

err..i heard that some said for larger capacity HDDs e.g 500GB the seek time and transfer rates are lower since it is much more dense than 320GB...is that true?

 

G.SKill Falcon or OCZ Vertex hybrid SSD+ HDD setup using optical bay caddy (see sig). Speed, capacity and ability to hotswap optical drive back in if needed.
Then don't really need a superfast HDD, just lots of capacity to store data on.

 

You mentioned that 250GB is already running out. Based on that I'd go for the Western Digital WD5000BEVT 500GB Scorpio Blue hard drive. I have one in my PS3, one in my laptop and a spare for backups. It runs cool, quiet and quick. The Western Digital WD3200BEKT 320GB Scorpio Black hard drive is a very popular 7200 RPM drive.

I'm not sure of the performance boost with 7200 RPM, I'm content with 5400 RPM. I never feel like my system is lagging. Realistically, 320GB (297GB actual) isn't much more than 250GB (232GB). Putting a 500GB (465GB) doubles your space for not a lot of $$. The speed increase from going to 7200 RPM may be worth it for you though. Like I said though, my system doesn't lag with 5400 RPM.

Another god cheap upgrade, put more RAM in there.

 

You won't be sacrificing much speed with the 500GB drive. I'd go with the Scorpio blue as the above poster mentioned but idk if sim lim will have it.

Consider just buying an external hard drive too.

 

Western Digital ScoripoBlue if you want 500GB
Western Digital ScorpioBlack if you want 320GB

And What Phill said here;
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=387477

 

I was in your exact situation just 2 weeks ago and I eventually decided to go with the 320Gb 7200rpm WD3200BEKT drive. When I thought about it it was cheaper and slightly faster than the WD5000BEKT and I really didn't have a use for 500Gb on my notebook (I use an external drive for most of my main backups).

This was just my case however yours might be different so I would advise you to think about what you really need capacity or speed and then decide. As others have said before you cannot go wrong with the western digital Scorpio blue 500Gb 5400rpm or the Scorpio black 320Gb 7200rpm drives they are both excellent choices.

 

Don't forget that increasing density without increasing RPM will still speed up a drive. A 500GB drive with the same number of platters as a 250GB drive will run faster, even if they're both going at 5400RPM. A 7200RPM, 250GB drive will not run appreciably faster than a 5400RPM, 500GB drive as long as both have the same number of platters, and the 7200RPM drive will use a bit more power just keeping spinning at the high RPM, as well as generate more heat.

 

I guess that depends on your computing needs. Do you value speed (performance) more than capacity? From the sound of your post, you need capacity, so I would probably lean towards a 500GB 5,400RPM hard drive. But more importantly, is battery life important to you?

This alone can skew your decision more than anything. Keep in mind that higher spinning hard drives (7,200RPM) require more battery power than slower spinning hard drives (5,400RPM) do.

So with that said, ask yourself the following:

Are you a road warrior, meaning that battery life is more important to you than performance? If so, go with an affordable 500GB 5,400RPM hard drive.

Are you more concerned with out-right performance, battery life be damned? If so, go with the more expensive 320GB or even 500GB 7,200RPM hard drive.

The capacity of your new HDD, in my opinion, isn't so much the deciding factor here. It's what you are planning to do with the laptop that is going to make the difference.

 

i hope i got lots of knowledge to do these stuffs...but i think better not mess with my laptop internals and these complicated things...thanks for the suggestion..its a nice combination....

i think ill just go with WD5000BEVT....thanks for the advice

i already found that some shops got WD5000BEVT , i already got passport 320GB which also filled with nice nice stuffs....almost full too

thanks..i go read it

my last desktop harddrive is seagate and heats up faster(the 80gb version 5 years ago) since that i prefer WD rather than seagate

thanks for the information .... finally somone clarify this

my laptop is plugged all the time...so power consumption is not a problem

so...the final decision is..im going for scorpio blue since it offers twice the performance of my current harrdisk...



thanks all for the replies