T400 7200 vs 5400rpm

I have searched around and am stumped by the by the drive speed options and the implications on responsiveness and battery life. Talking to Lenovo the response is a little faster and a little less battery life. I didnt find anything really on the forum ....So with a 4g memory machine, is there a perceptive battery use difference? (no gaming, internet, email, and word processing)

Reviews show about maybe 20% faster access, but is that really perceptable? The alternative is to go cheap (5400) and wait for a SSD downstream....The puzzling thing is the power consumption...more power is used to get the hard drive up to speed, but once there the difference should be only friction....so maybe that is why there isn't a straight answer because use habits vary so much. Is the battery difference perceptable?
Any comments would be welcome.
Thx

 

7200 is much noisier than 5400. I regretted buying a 500 GB 7200.

 

The answer is fairly complicated due to the variation between models themselves and the fact that Lenovo doesn't just use one company for same capacity drives. For example, some 7200RPM drives can be quieter, consume less power, and be faster than 5400RPM drives. Is this noticeable? To some yes, to some no. It also depends on the cost of the upgrade. Generally, I prefer to stick with the lowest specced HDD and upgrade myself since I know what company and model I am purchasing and I can usually find a better price. If you could supply us with more information on your specific choices, I'm sure people could give you more specific answers.

 

As a general trend, 7200RPM drives are faster and do use slightly more power. However, it's difficult to say, as sgogeta4 pointed out, because Lenovo uses disks from various manufacturers, from different generations. I got an older-generation Hitachi 160GB 7200RPM drive from Lenovo, which is consistently beaten by the newer 5400RPM drives. It is also the loudest component in my T500.

 

Of the 10 or so 7200RPM drives I've had only one was what I consider to be noisy. I got it replaced.

 

The 7200rpm HDD that came with my W500 was faster and quieter (with a lower, more pleasant pitch) than a 5400rpm HDD that I tried from third party. It was brilliant. I now use a SSD, which is silent.

 

"As a general trend, 7200RPM drives are faster and do use slightly more power"

For a shorter amount of time.

Renee

 

I'll just add to Renee's statement, only when you are comparing similar capacities/generations. Since a single platter 7200RPM drive will be faster but consume less power than a double platter 5400RPM of the same capacity (would be an older generation). Comparing different capacities and generations, you'd want to do research on particular models.

 

The difficulty seems to be with the T400 options, they do not specify any model specifics.....so it sounds like buying lower priced drive option and possibly later upgrading is a reasonable way to go. I think I will take a shot at actually asking them the specifics...that should be interesting
The option list jumps in price pretty dramatically with the larger 7200 drives.
160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm

250 GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm [add $30.00]

160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm [add $30.00]

320GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm [add $60.00]

320 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm [add $100.00]

500 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm [add $140.00]

128 GB High-Performance Solid State Drive, Serial ATA [add $380.00]

Thanks for the thoughts!

 

7200rpm are definitely noticeably faster than 5400rpm. And in real world use, the battery drain is basically the same.

BTW, SSD are not silent, they make little electronic chirps/squeak. Kinda funny, but true. But regular disk drives are louder, because of spin up and the heads moving. Again, most drives are pretty quiet these days.

 

When you say a drive is faster you must think about in what aspect.
Random vs sequential. Etc. Not necessarily able to generalize all the time.

SSDs make significantly less noise than an HDD to the point that I would call them "silent" in the lay man use. The lack of excessive heat is also a very positive attribute of an SSD as well.