difference in speed from 250g/320g 5400 rpm hdd's

i've been searching the forums for performance comparisons but can't find what i'm looking for. i want to upgrade my hdd from 160 gigs to @ least 250gigs. will there be a noticeable difference or should i get a 320gig?

 

have you checked HDtune benchmarks thread?

 

pukemon, here is what you want to know:
Most 160gb 5400rpm drives are able to maintain 35mb/sec of data bandwidth. The samsung drive with one 160gb platter will be able to maintain speeds of 53mb/sec.
The 250gb drives are able to maintain 44mb/sec,
and all 320gb 5400 drives can maintain 52mb/sec or so

K-TRON

 

thanks. so question now is i already bought a 250g WD drive. should i return it and get a 320g? i'm looking more for performance. i don't necessarily need all the space, but i definitely want the headroom because i'll be dual booting, possibly triple booting. the price difference is $40 to go 320g but i will probably wait for a sale on the 320g. what do you think?

 

k-tron already gave you the figures, you will have to choose for yourself.

personally id go with the 320gb

 

Check the benchmarks on http://www.storagereview.com/Hitachi250WD320.sr?page=0,2
Look for the benchmarks that is important to you. HD Tune is synthetic benchmark and the results don't say much about real life performance.

320GB sometimes take more power but look at the results for yourself.

 

The 320 5k can be had for ~120$ , so I`d get that if I were you, it's just as fast as 200gb 7k one, but you already know that from the S/C forum.

 

You might want to look into the HEAT issues.

The 320GB drives I looked into all had a higher heat of operation than the 250GB drives.

 

You may want to check some application bechmarks instead of HDTune/HDTach results.

The advantage of the Hitachi 7k200 over 320GB disks is staggering.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3486794#post3486794

The difference is even bigger when it comes to games:
http://www.storagereview.com/Hitachi250WD320.sr?page=0,3

 

What 160GB samsung drive is that you mean?

 

HM160HI (SATA) or HM160HC (PATA).

John

 

I know dude, but a 320/7200 will also release a lot more heat.
And the price is almost double that of the 320/5400. SO it's totally messed up.

 

I was talking about a 200GB/7200 rpm. Where did you find that it produces too much heat? I personally never had a problem with 7200rpm disks.

It is more expensive, but some people value performance more than others. It seemed to me that the OP was looking for performance.

 

i'm weighing performance/value 5400 rpm and western digital only. i do not want to worry about heat issues at all even though i have overkill with cooling. i'm sure some other brand can offer ~5 megs a second better performance 5k or 7k but none will offer the silence and coolness of a western digital.