new hard drive for 8510p - some questions?

I want to buy a new hard drive for my HP 8510p notebook.
It's probably going to be a SEAGATE Momentus 7200.2, 160GB

1) Will this drive be compatible with HP's DriveLock and Power-On password feature?

2) Will the HP warranty be affected (or become void) by this upgrade?

3) The stock HD I currently have, runs with 5400 rpm and the Seagate runs with 7200 rpm. Will this affect the battery life of my laptop?

4) Is 7200 rpm really that much better than 5400 rpm?

 

1. yep

2. no, you will not void the warranty

3. battery life will be a tiny little bit shorter, but see it this way , since your hdd is running faster and the whole OS and applications will have some profit from the 7200rpm drive you will have shorter file-loading times.you waste battery time also when waiting for the hdd to load some files, your productivity rate will be better.
4. yep, you will experience your laptop quite different when using a fast hdd. 7200 is way better performancewise.

 

Agreed with everything above, but just be aware that HP 3D DriveGuard *might* not work with the new hard drive. Unless this is an important feature to you, I would definitely go for the new hard drive.

 

Thanks so much guys, those were the answers I was hoping for

@Teraforce: The Seagate Momentus HD has something called "G-Protection" built in, which seems to be quite the same thing as 3D DriveGuard. From what I understand, it works autonomously, but it would be nice if it would integrate with the 3D DriveGuard software.