Swap out drive or memory?

I have a new T61 with T7300 processor, 2 gigs of memory, and 160 gig 5400 rpm drive. I was wondering what you guys think I should do if any of the following:

1. Swap out 160 gig 5400 for 160 gig 7200 rpm with 16 mb cache (travelstar) next gen. $170

2. Add 2 gigs of memory for a total of 3. $80

3. Both $240

4. None of the above not enough of a performance boost to justify expense

 

If anything, I'd upgrade the hard drive. 2GB of RAM is sufficient for most tasks these days, even gaming in Vista from my experience. You would probably notice a slight increaes in speed with a new HD. If you computer doesn't feel sluggish though, I'd just leave it as is.

 

Depending on my needs (yours may be different):
1. I wouldn't bother
2. Yes (i did the same for my T61)

 

Go for the HDD, you will feel a nice improvement in boot times and windows usage in general. I cant stand anything with a 5400 drive or slower

 

Swap out HD; you'll notice an improvement. 2gb of RAM is sufficient, I would save the money. With it you can buy the SATA HD Ultrabay adapter and use your spare 5400rpm drive in it for extra space.

 

Just ordered 7200 rpm drive with 16 mb cache we will see how it works should be here tomorrow.

 

Along with the new hard drive I would suggest ordering a 2 or 4 gigabyte class 6 SD card and set it to be used for Windows Readyboost. That actually has sped things up a lot on the computers where I have tried it.

 

Did that really improve performance over the 1 gig turbo memory on the motherboard?

 

Yeah it did

I still use the 1 gig for ReadyDrive, which is a great feature, Windows can use ReadyDrive to speed up booting whereas ReadyBoost isn't available until Windows is booted up. I would rather let it use the whole 1 gig for ReadyDrive and use a separate card for ReadyBoost.

 

I have been thinking about doing this hellbore, what size SD are you using for readyboost? Alot of people favour not using as SD card but those that do swear its faster in windows...

 

Well it was faster for me, this was in Vista 64 bit. I used a 4 gig class 6 SDHC card.

 

UPS messed up so I have to wait another day, but I disabled readyboost on the turbo memory, added 2 gigs of Ultra II sd card memory, and it is noticeably faster. I cannot wait for the new 7k200 drive.

Phil

 

Did you keep ReadyDrive enabled and only disable ReadyBoost, in the Intel Turbo Memory console?

I'm not sure, but hopefully that causes it to use the whole 1 gb for ReadyDrive, I'm not sure if that is the case though.

I have the 7k200 drive and let me tell you, it is smokin... It's a damn fine piece of hard drive!

 

Yes I just disabled readyboost, but I have no idea of readydrive will use all 1 gig now, but the 2 gig of SDHC memory is smoking.

 

I just installed the drive, and I am not sure if there has been a big speed difference. I downloaded HD-Tune ... anyone else have the 16mb 7200 rpm hitachi willing to give some guidance on what the real world performance is like?