please explain on hard disk

[galant_mod]

i intend to swap my laptop hard disk for a faster one.now currently is a 5400rpm 160gb.are there anything higher than 7200rpm?and wad are the difference SATA, ATA, Ultra ATA and RAID 0,1,2 or something???which is the fastest and reliable.please recommend with links too.help will be much appreciated

 

[ReverseFluxx]

7200RPM is the fastest speed for laptop hard drives. You'll need to find out what interface your laptop uses for its hard drives to know whether you need a SATA or ATA drive. SATA is used in newer laptops, while older ones use ATA. Unless your laptop has SATA support and can support two drives, you don't need to worry about RAID. You need at least two drives for the smallest of RAID setups.

 

[turtile]

There isn't anything above 7200RPM. Hitachi's 7200RPM 200GB drive is very fast.

 

[galant_mod]

im using vista..how do i know im using sata or ata??is 200gb the highest?
is it true that the larger the hard disk goes with slower speed?

 

[ReverseFluxx]

What's the model of the laptop?

 

[galant_mod]

acer aspire 5050

 

[Apokalipse]

is it true that the larger the hard disk goes with slower speed?

Not if they're the same series, and have the same spindle speed.
a 7200RPM drive which is 750GB will be just as fast as a 7200RPM drive that is 250GB, if they're the same series of drive (like Seagate Barracuda 7200.10)

The only thing is, usually hard drives with faster spindle speeds don't have as high capacity. But are more expensive.

 

[ReverseFluxx]

I found that the Acer Aspire 5050 has an ATA hard drive interface. I would recommend Newegg.com - Seagate Momentus 7200.1 ST910021A 100GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive - OEM. If you're wanting a faster drive, you're going to need to sacrifice some drive space.

 

[carnageX]

There isn't anything above 7200RPM. Hitachi's 7200RPM 200GB drive is very fast.

There isn't anything faster for a laptop than 7200RPM...but for desktops there's the Western Digital Raptor, at 10,000RPM, but doesn't have the capacity enough to make it worthwhile, since I've heard that most 750GB drives @ 7200RPM perform the same...am I correct on that part?

 

[Apokalipse]

There isn't anything faster for a laptop than 7200RPM...but for desktops there's the Western Digital Raptor, at 10,000RPM, but doesn't have the capacity enough to make it worthwhile, since I've heard that most 750GB drives @ 7200RPM perform the same...am I correct on that part?

In maximum sustained transfer rate, they can get pretty close.

But the average seek time of the Raptor is around 5ms, compared to 8.5ms of 7200RPM drives.

If you're accessing lots of smaller files (like an Operating System or an installed game might do), then that can help.