Thread: Laptop HD

Are you looking for performance or capacity?

I recently ordered this for my wife's birthday last month: Western Digital 320 GB Scorpio Black SATA 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Notebook Hard Drive WD3200BEKT. Based upon the Windows Experience Index, there was over a 20% increase in power from her original 5400-rpm hard drive to her new 7200-rpm drive. Since she only uses her Sony Vaio for iTunes and surfing the internet, I was able to be cheap and get the 320. However, Western Digital makes a 500GB and 750GB version. I was looking at both for when I set up an external RAID system within the next few weeks. If you want something cheaper in price, I'd then look at the Western Digital Scorpio Blue line.

I've also heard people rave about the Seagate Momentus XT, but it's steeper in price due to it being a hybrid drive.

Agree'd with cupboardoflove, I have that same hard drive in my laptop. Overall, the upgrade from a 5k to a 7k RPM hard drive was not very noticeable, I know it did help in a number of ways that were not immediately noticeable. I have the 500gig version of the Scorpio Black - I recommend this! I would steer away from hybrid drives (just for now), in my opinion, the tech is too new to get some of the lesser known bugs out of them. Give new tech 6 months to a year, not only will it drop in price, but it will be better. Let other people test them

Originally Posted by Operator

Overall, the upgrade from a 5k to a 7k RPM hard drive was not very noticeable, I know it did help in a number of ways that were not immediately noticeable.

I ran Geekbench on my wife's laptop before and after I installed the new HD (alongside maxing out her RAM to a measly 4GB) and reinstalled Windows 7 (64-bit). Once everything was said and done, there was a 40% increase in performance for upgrades that cost me under $85. My wife's laptop is over three years old (1.83GHz Core 2 Duo), so I've made it to the point where I've maxed out its performance. So when it finally takes a dump is when we will purchase her a new laptop.

Right, but do the benchmark - and a just general personal notice - of just the hard drive, it's not that noticeable. My guess is that you jumped from 2 to 4 gigs (or 1 to 4 ) and that was where most of the 40% came from, especially if it was higher speed. And with windows 64 bit, that RAM jump is even more noticeable.

Just the hard drive though, not much of a gain.

Originally Posted by Operator

Right, but do the benchmark - and a just general personal notice - of just the hard drive, it's not that noticeable. My guess is that you jumped from 2 to 4 gigs (or 1 to 4 ) and that was where most of the 40% came from, especially if it was higher speed. And with windows 64 bit, that RAM jump is even more noticeable.

Just the hard drive though, not much of a gain.

It was 3 to 4GB, but the 5400-rpm drive was running a 32-bit version of Windows 7.... so that could be a reason why there was such an increase.