laptop drive...320 or 250?

reading around the forum, ive seen mentioned that a higher capacity drive will be faster then its lower brother. Im looking at getting either a 250GB or 320GB WD scorpio Black 7200rpm drive. how much of a speed difference will there be between the 2 sizes or will it be something only a bench mark program will show.

 

There wont be a "huge" speed diffrence but with the data density being greater per platter on the 320gb drive it will be a bit faster over the 250. And plus you can never go wrong with more storage space

I'm waiting on the 400gb 2 platter drives that will be coming out around sept. I originally wanted the samsung 500gb drives, but i figure a 7200rpm drive that runs cooler and with less power than my 320gb 7200rms drive is a bit better of an upgrade.

 

im taking a guess that those 400gb drives will be something like 200+ dollars

 

probably, but so were the 320x7200rpm drive i got, so its not really expensive when considered to other purchases. Its a good chunk of money still, but pretty much everything new is in electronics.

I'm hoping against hope that they will come out with a large capacity SSD eventually for about 200

 

Some of the lower capacity HDDs use 3, 2, or even 1 side of a platter. For example, read the datasheet for the Hitachi 5k320 and you will see that the 250GB version has 3 heads (which means 3 sides of 2 platters) and that means a slightly higher data density than the 320GB.

So, do your research.

John

 

but how much of a speed difference will that amount to? like will i actually notice that or will i need to stress it in a test to see small number difference

 

Performance differences of less than about 20% will be difficult to detect without a stop watch. There's a load of benchmark results at Tom's Hardware. The WinXP startup test is probably more representative of real life than most of them.

I went from a 250GB to a 320GB and can't claim to have noticed the performance difference. I needed the extra space. However, the 320GB (Fujitsu) is a bit cooler than the 250GB (WD).

John

 

Exactly my thoughts.

 

One person said the 320gb has more data density. John says that the 250gb version of the 320gb has more density. Which one is right?

I'm interested in buying a 160gb western digital scorpio black. Basically I don't need that much space, and I'm more interested in the performance. If the 160gb is just one platter of the 320gb scorpio black I'd assume I'd get the same read/write rates as the 320gb and possibly a higher access time??????

 

One is right for some drives, the other right for others.

The 320GB WD BEVS scores better than the 250GB WD BEVS. Benchmarks.

That does sound logical. Although I don't know if it really true.

It would be good to check the product sheets or find benchmarks.

 

K-TRON posted results for the one-platter Samsung HM160JI. I recall that both transfer rates and access time were similar to the Samsung 320GB. There's no reason that access times will improve with a single disc configuration because the head movements will be the same as a two disc unit (there is one mechanism which moves all the heads). There is the possibility of 160GB using the outer half of two platters which would reduce the required head movement.

John