Your Opinion matter. Please post and help with my dilemma.

Ok here goes my dilemma. I want to do some upgrades to my laptop, it's been a year (a great one indeed ) since I purchased my laptop and it's time to make a few things better. I want to add a new HDD of 160GB and 4GB of RAM. I have the money to buy just one of them, but I don't know which one to get first.

I'm an IT Professional and do a variety of works in my field, I need more disk space for my Virtual Machines and for other OS that I'd like to run along with Vista (i.e. Linux). The RAM upgrade is important because of the Web Design job I'm doing, although I need more space for new VMs the one I already have demmand more memory space too.

I decided to make the purchase for both items at newegg (thery have the items I want for the right prize), the HDD is a Seagate Momentus 5400RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s. As for the memory RAM I have two options but for the second one I'm not sure if it will work with my laptop, so your opinion will be greatly appreciated (my laptop spec are below in my sig), the two optios are these:
1) G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300)
2)OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

According to PC Wizard2008 My laptop supports pc2 6400, but I'm not sure. Give me you opinion: What should I buy The HDD or the RAM? if it's the RAM, Whitch one should I get?

Thanx

 

You can use DDR2 800 but it will downclock to DDR2 667 sicne the chipset isnt capable of supporting DDR2 800. So, get what ever turns out to be cheaper.

 

If you are going to upgrade the HDD, why not get something bigger than a 160GB? You can move upto 320GB and it's not that much more expensive. Remember, this isn't a desktop, so you can't just keep adding HDDs. Also, I suggest you purchase a 7200RPM HDD, to me it is worth the little bit of extra money it costs.

As miner stated, your laptop will only run at the PC2 5300/5400 (667Mhz), and if you get the DDR2 6400 (800 Mhz) it will downclock the RAM to the 667Mhz. Also, unless you are planning on upgrading to a 64-bit OS, you'll only be able to use 3.2GB of the RAM, so you might be better off only purchasing one 2GB stick and you'll have 3GB of RAM, and then when you decide to upgrade to 64-bit OS you can buy another 2GB stick.

As far as which one to get first, are you in more need of the HDD space or the performance at the moment? Also, how long will it be before you do the second upgrade after this one?

 

Thanks all for posting back. Here are my answers Envision:

1) The reason I don't go beyond the 160GB is becuase I can't pay more that 80 bucks. Besides, I don't need anything bigger.

2) As for getting 7200RPM, the same reason as #1 and also because I've read about the heating problem and battery consumption. You may correct me in this one.

3) I'm planning to install ubuntu 64bit for dual boot, also XP 64 bit for testing purpose (some project I'm working on) and also will be running 2003 server Enterprise, most of these OS I'll be running (except Ubunt) are all for testing. Because those I want to keep will be in Virtual Machines.

4)What do I need? well that's the deal, I need both but right now I only have the money for One (I don't live in USA, so I don't earn in dollars, it takes some time for me to put the money together), I can skip the HDD and continue to work on the external one (but won't be able to work away from home) or I can sacrifice performance and only work with two or three VM but have all the work with me and shutdown all apps when running Adobe Web Cs3 or Visual Studio 2005.

 

There is a little difference in heat between the 5400 and the 7200, but you won't notice it. Also, if you don't have a cooling pad for your notebook and don't plan on getting one, prop the back of your laptop up with something so the air can flow freely and not straight into a surface where it will just keep heating the laptop.

As far as which one to get first, it's still your call, because you know what you need more right now, not me. You stated the reasons if your 4th statement above, take those and the information we gave you and make the best decision that will match your needs for the moment. I can't tell you that you need the RAM right now more than the HDD space, that's something only you'll know and a decision that you should make.

 

Ok. A happy ending for my dilemma. After giving a lot of thoughts and evaluating your opinions, it was obvious that I needed both things (Virtual machines demmands both HDD space and RAM and Web & Apps design/development definitely aprreciate both too.) and I ended up getting the extra money for them.

This was my purchase:

1) Momentus 5400.3 ST9160821AS 160GB 5400 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive

2) G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Laptop Memory Model F2-5300CL5D-4GBSA

Grand Total: $149.98. Thanks all for your posts!!!