Which hardrive is faster?

The 80gb is in my desktop now and I am looking to get a notebook with comperable speeds.

80gb 7200rpm (its 5 years old if that matters)

or

120 or 160gb 5400rpm

 

It's most likely comparable, mostly because of it's age. If you moved up in size a bit on the notebook then it would be faster because of greater data density.

There was just a topic about comparing 7200 and 5400 rpm notebook drives, and the 250+ gb 5400 hard drives were just as fast as the 120gb 7200's. The same should also apply here, along with the drop of efficiency as the drive ages. Lastly, a couple of years ago drive makers began to arrange the data differently on the drive(I can't remember the terminology), allowing for faster transfer speeds and higher capacities. The old desktop drive you have would fall in before this happened, so that also makes it slower in addition to the other factors.

Greg

 

Is the drive your comparing SATA or IDE? That will make a little bit of difference. And 120/160 will probably be a little faster, but maybe not noticable.

 

Really? I never heard that before. I'd been holding out on grabbing a new HDD for my notebook because I wanted to get a 7200 RPM drive but since its older sometimes it can be harder to find them.

So I'd be better off getting a 250 GB 5400 RPM drive then an 80 GB 7200 RPM drive? (keeping in mind that actual space is a non issue for me, I only care about performance)

 

I have a SATA drive.
Thanks for the replies also

 

Basically, yes. Keep in mind that the 250gb 5400 will most likely be more expensive than the 80gb 7200rpm drive. For me it would be worth it because of the better battery life and longevity of the drive. Since the drive spins slower, over the life of both drives under the same use, the the 5400 rpm drive would have make about 30% less revolutions than the 7200 rpm drive. The more revolutions, the more wear.

So, more space, longer battery, and more longevity out of the drive, what's not to like?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=215419

Greg

 

The 320Gb 5400rpm samsung and western digital drives are identical in speed with Hitachi's fastest 200Gb 7200rpm drive. The 7200 only wins in access time. Other than that read/write speeds are near identical because of the data density of the 5400rpm drives.

K-TRON

 

I see, I see. Thanks for the link. I don't really need that much space (I get by just fine with my 60 GB drive) but I'm all for added performance and if I had the space I'd end up using it. I'm dual booting right now...I was thinking of just putting in a new hard drive and going straight with Ubuntu on my new drive since the Radeon 345 IGP in my notebook limits my gaming abilities.

Still, if I purposely buy a larger drive like that maybe it would be worth my time to get XP back on it.

 

go for the 7200 drive it will be faster

 

I think 7200 drive is better!

 

There are so many threads like this and very lengthly.
Plain and simple, confine yourself.
If you want capacity, get 250GB, of course it has 5400RPM.
For speed, yes 7200RPM will satify your need.
If you' aren't too picky, the 5400rpm drive is fine.

 

First, I'm no expert. I have an older Sony GRZ610. Recently, I replaced its original 40GB 4800 IDE HD for a 120GB 5400RPM drive. It works fine. Now, what I really want to say is why I did it and what I suggest to you. Namely think about what you want the addition for.

The Sony is used for special presentations in my classroom. When I have a presentation that reinforces what I'm teaching and all that, I haul it along. Once in a blue moon, I may use it to run a video or ad at one of the art festivals my wife goes to to sell her artwork. It runs things like a video of her making things or a self-made looping Flash ad exhibited on a screen to get folks attention to her booth. That's all I use it for. Whereas my Sager NP9890
is used for conference presentations and training seminars because I need the muscle to run serious video files often with several other applications open and minimized which I must switch among during these lectures/presentations. I find myself working with ever larger video files due to the type of work I do. Consequently, I'm seriously thinking of replacing the two 100GB 7200RPM HDs with two 160GB 7200's or two 250GB 5400's. Video runs better right off the HD than it does from a USB HD or DVD. My Sager NP9261 has actually replaced my desktop computer so has three 250GB 5400 RPM HDs and 3GB RAM. I use it the same way I used my old tower case computer. So the point again is whether buying a new computer or installing an upgrade, the focus should be on what you're doing it for so you select the choice based on its ability to meet a specific need or intent.

 

There are some fast, lower capacity HDDs around, but you need to be sure you are getting one. For example, the Hitachi 7k200 comes in a range of capacities between 200GB and 80GB. If you look at the datasheet you will see that the number of disks, number of heads and data density vary according to the capacity.

The 7k200 100GB uses one platter and has the same data density as the 7k200 200GB, whereas the other capacities have a lower data density (and therefore a probably lower data transfer rate).

Other manufacturers do something similar but the challenge is to figure out what you are getting before you buy it.

John