Should I upgrade a DV5000t to a 7,200 SATA Hard Drive

I am looking at a DV5000T and was thinking of buying the minimum HD and upgradeing when I get it. I have been looking and I am haveing a hard tmie finding a SATA 2.5" notebook Hard drive. http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q1/mobile-hdds/index.x?pg=1 This article shows comparisons between the 5,200 and 7,200. I think that if I do the upgrade I may just spend $180 for little improvment and loss of battery. If I do get a HD where should it be from and can I get an external enclosure for the old HD?

Thank you all for your time

 

If your keeping the same amount of space, I dont see any reason for you to switch to a 7200RPM. There isnt a huge difference and it will only benefit web designers and people who do extreme rendering etc.

If you do something like that its worth it, otherwise pointless.

 

I replaced the 4200RPM drive in my zv5000z with a 7200RPM drive, simply because HP didn't offer anything faster than 4200RPM at the time. My dv8000z came with 5400RPM drives and I don't notice much of a difference. I'm not doing anything that stresses HD access times though (the 7200RPM drives' strong point).

If you do buy one, Seagate 7200.1 SATA drives can be found at Newegg and ZipZoomFly. The 100GB model is a bit under $200 and the 80GB is usually about $40 cheaper. I've been tempted to buy one as a really quiet desktop PC boot drive (notebook and desktop SATA drives use the same connectors) but I could do without the expense right now.

 

A 7200RPM drive makes the system more responsive, you'll have faster loading and boot-up times. It shouldn't affect the battery life more than a few minutes, since 7200RPM drives have the same power requirements as 5400RPM drives. The only reason that 7200RPM drives have a few minutes less battery life is because it takes longer to 'spin up' to its operational RPM.

I went to www.buy.com and bought my Hitach 100GB 7200RPM SATA drive (yes, the SATA drives are very hard to find indeed) for $189.99, plus about $5 shipping. Most of the reviews I have read have shown that the Hitach is the faster drive compared to the Seagate. Hitachi's noisier though.

To my knowledge, there are no SATA 2.5" enclosures - I've looked. I have an 80GB 5400RPM SATA sitting around, and until there's an enclosure I can buy for it, it is just going to sit there.

But before you buy - keep in mind that a 5400RPM is fine for most people. I was on one for a year and a half without issues, there's not a drastic difference going to 7200 vs. my SATA 5400.

Chaz

 

Thank you for your replies. I think I will stick with the factory 5,400 HD and save money and the time to do an install on the new HD. From what I understand a cold install on the DV5000T is kind of a pain.

 

This was in the Accessories forum a few weeks ago:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=45631

 

Thanks for the great link, lumberbunny. Very helpful, I'll probably order one of those. 80GB 5400RPM SATA drive sitting around isn't very helpful.

Cheers,
Chaz

 

No problem, Chaz. You'll have to let us know how it works out for you if you do get one.