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    Upgrading harddrive 5400rpm or 7200rpm

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by mempf, Nov 9, 2005.

  1. mempf

    mempf Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'm looking to upgrade the 4200RPM harddrive in my v2000z laptop with the 12 cell battery and im wondering what would be better.

    I need battery life so how much battery life would I lose going with the 7200 over the 5400?

    Thanks
     
    mempf, Nov 9, 2005
    #1
  2. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    Battery life differnce is very small if any.
     
    ZaZ, Nov 9, 2005
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  3. island_boy

    island_boy Notebook Geek

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    Might also want to consider the extra heat from the 7200RPM HDD. I've only used 4200RPM HDDs in laptops, so the 5400RPM HDD in my V2309 is faster but it's also hotter. I think 5400RPM is the sweet spot between battery life, performance and heat.
     
    island_boy, Nov 9, 2005
    #3
  4. mempf

    mempf Notebook Enthusiast

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    Well after concidering what you guys said and looking at the prices I tink il go for a 5400RPM drive.

    Thanks for the help
     
    mempf, Nov 9, 2005
    #4
  5. brianstretch

    brianstretch Notebook Virtuoso

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    My 7200RPM Hitachi 7K60 drive generally runs 40C-50C depending on how heavily it's being used, and the current 7K100 drives are likely cooler. I'd search for 7K100 and 7200.1 (Seagate) drives on zipzoomfly.com. Make sure you select the IDE versions and not the SATA. The major downside of 7200RPM drives is the expense. Otherwise, buy one.
     
    brianstretch, Nov 9, 2005
    #5
  6. chinna_n

    chinna_n Notebook Deity NBR Reviewer

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    I my opinion, 7200RPM makes much more difference than a 5400RPM drive. Power consumption difference is pretty small(may be loose 10 min of battery life overall).
    And heat, I doubt it would be much different, but ofcourse that depends of each model.

    I bought Toshiba 40G 5400RPM 16MB cache for my V2000z. The did not observe any bettery life difference.( There may be few minute I am not sure of, but I also upgraded memory to 1GB DDR400, so both together may be contributing to 5-10min).

    The Toshiba drive I bought has highest power consumption among the current 5400RPM drive(power up, seek, read, write and even stand by) and it is about same as Hitachi 7200RPM drive.

    As per performance I gained defintely some, but nothing that blows me away( much less than I expected). Boot time is cut by 5 sec, HDD scores are improved by average 15-20%, but in overall the difference is nothing substantial, atleast not as much as I expected for 5400RPM 16MB cache. Sometimes I regret, may be I should have spend that $70 towards Hitachi 7200RPM drive.

    Quite a few review are saying great things Hitachi 7200RPM drive and they say it is closet you can get to 3.5" hard drive performance. Especially seek times, latency is much shorter along with much more bandwidth with 7200RPM drive.

    All in all, I think better bet would be going with 7200RPM drive and you would not regret it.
     
    chinna_n, Nov 9, 2005
    #6
  7. j0hn00

    j0hn00 Notebook Evangelist

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    My 7K100 runs much cooler than the 5400RPM Fujitsu that came wih my notebook. I average in the low to mid 30s and haven't seen it in the 40s yet, even when defragging and moving large files.
     
    j0hn00, Nov 9, 2005
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  8. Charles P. Jefferies

    Charles P. Jefferies Lead Moderator Super Moderator

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    Your hard drive temperature will also depend on the notebook itself, and it's placement, etc. In my Acer, the hard drive was very hot due to the fact that it was right near the GPU/CPU, and there was very little cooling getting to it.

    I had an HP zv5000z once, and the hard drive was positioned a few inches away from any other heat-producing component - it ran very cool - never saw it get above 40 degrees.

    The thickness of the notebook counts as well - the thicker the notebook, the more places the heat has to go.
     
    Charles P. Jefferies, Nov 9, 2005
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  9. j0hn00

    j0hn00 Notebook Evangelist

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    Good point. However, the Hitachi 7K100 does runs much cooler (almost 10C) than my old Fujitsu 5400RPM. Same laptop, different hard drives, everything else unchanged. Don't know about battery consumption, because I have yet to run off my battery for an extended period.
     
    j0hn00, Nov 10, 2005
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  10. ikecomp

    ikecomp Newbie

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    If you are more concerned about performance, go with the Hitachi 7200. When extracting a series of rar files to get one big file usually around 4.3 gb, it takes my desktop about 7 min. It takes my laptop with the hitachi drive about 7 1/2 min. On my older 4200 drive it would take 20 min. Not to mention my boot times have cut off about 10 seconds. And the only heat issues I have observed are do to the fact that my laptop naturally runs hot.
     
    ikecomp, Nov 11, 2005
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  11. ivar

    ivar Notebook Deity

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    ivar, Nov 17, 2005
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  12. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    ZaZ, Nov 17, 2005
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  13. j0hn00

    j0hn00 Notebook Evangelist

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    Great link... I'm glad I went with the Hitachi.
     
    j0hn00, Nov 17, 2005
    #13