HP dv6500t and Hitachi 7200 RPM 16MB Cache

Well, first I don't think the fan comes on any more often with the 7200 RPM drive. The fan was on constantly with the stock 5400 drive. I didn't do any temperature measurements but sitting on my lap, the new drive doesn't appear to generate any different amount of heat.

I was going to do some timing testing with the two drives, but I was unable to burn the same disk image from the 5400 to the new drive when using Acronis TrueImage 9. I was getting a corruption error when booting the new drive so I gave up and just did a clean Vista install.

I'm not on my PC now, but the WEI score jumped considerably when switching drives... I think it's at least 5.6 for disk and was like 4.4 previously. Still limited by the 3.6 graphics performance score ... but whatever it's just the WEI.

My only comparison on boot times was using the 5400 and the OEM Vista load vs. 7200 and clean Vista: 1 min 45 sec vs. only 40 sec, respectively. Note: I used the fingerprint reader to log in. Big change here!

I don't really game on the laptop, but I'll play an occasional game of Civilization IV and the saved games load much quicker.

For me, it was worthwhile- I feel like I have better performance with no apparent side effects and I have enough room to comfortably set up a dual boot with Ubuntu in the future.

 

200GB 7200rpm...nice

I upgraded form a 4200 to 7200rpm in the summer and i loved it ATA though old notebook

 

i'm looking into installing the same HDD into my laptop in the first few weeks of next year. I was wondering if you restored any files using the back-up tool in Vista. If so how good did that work?

 

Nope, I didn't use the MS backup tool. I just reinstalled Windows on the new drive using orev's guide. I copied files/settings manually after putting the old drive in a FAR USB 2.5" SATA external HDD case. I wanted a clean install, so I wasn't going to play around with any backup.

Still waiting for my rebate check.....................

 

i dont want to sound like a tard but, how do you transfer settings?

 

Well... i suppose you don't actually transfer settings... you copy files that contain settings, e.g. Outlook files, Word Normal.dot, IE Favorites, Firefox data files, etc.

I believe Windows Backup & Restore and there used to be an Office backup command that allowed for saving of settings to a file that can be restored.

 

Hmm.. I'm going to buy a HP Laptop today, as it is on sale and $500 off, but only comes with a 4200rmp drive :/. How much performance increase will I see with a 5200rmp and a 7200rmp?

 

The HDD will be able to find data and write data faster, which will improve the speed at which programs load and save. With the price hardware dramatically decreasing in today's market it is well worth it to buy a better HDD and replace the stock one. Hell, you can even buy an external enclosure and put the stock HDD in it for extra storage and if you need to transfer data from computer to computer.

 

YUP! That's exactly what I do! Works great

Make sure you get a SATA external enclosure, though!!! I jumped on a FAR deal and didn't pay attention that it was an IDE enclosure, so I had to wait till another SATA deal came along.

 

Not a difference that's worth $500!!