5400rpm vs 7200rpm, which one?

[Landorf]

I'm buying a new laptop soon and I have everything figured out except for the hard drive.

I can't decide whether to get a 160gb 7200rpm or a 250gb 5400rpm.
The 7200 would be +$49 compared to the 5400 which is +$30 to my final price, so its not really an issue there.

All I would do on this is record/edit audio, play WoW (or other mmo), do basic computing stuff like writing and excel(ing), maybe some other media stuff like watching movies and playing poker.

I need some opinions because I've heard good things about both.
Thanks for your input!

 

[peterhuang913]

Do you need more space or no? If not, then get the lesser one. 160GB for a laptop IMO is enough.

 

[Landorf]

I've been doing fine on 60 so i think 160 will be plenty

 

[peterhuang913]

Yea, it should be.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

Honestly, for the same price, I'd rather have the 250GB. I have a 5400RPM 250GB in my laptop and it is plenty fast. Considering I have less than 100GB free, the space is an issue (I plan on adding a 2nd drive soon, maybe when 500GB drives come out). Unless you use some seriously hard disk usage applications, 5400RPM will be fine (I play games on this computer and it loads very fast). 5400 will be fast enough to play high quality video files off your hard drive too.

Remember that the data transfer rate doesn't only depend on the RPM, but also on the size. Because a 250GB platter has more data on the disk, it can move more data at slower speeds (think of the head moving over the disk, if the disk has more data on it, then each bit of data is smaller, so the head covers more bits per revolution on a larger capacity disk than it does on a low capacity disk). So, basically, 5400RPM and 7200RPM aren't the only indicators of disk (data throughput) speed.

Since 5400RPM doesn't spin the motor as fast, it also uses less battery power than a 7200RPM disk. The 5400RPM 250 is also cheaper (or so you say) so I'd definitely get more space for less money, even if it is a bit slower (which really doesn't matter unless you're using like HD video capture apps without encoding or other apps that need to save huge amounts of streaming data).

 

[KSoD]

I have to agree with Calc. the 7200 would be nice but for the gain you also get more heat generated. Most laptops run a 5400 to keep the heat down.

Plus you may not need the space now but when you get it you seem to fill it up cause you know you have it.

IMO the 5400 would be better to keep the heat down in the laptop.

 

[Drizzt]

Plus you man not need the space now but when you get it you seem to fill it up cause you know you have it.

Right on! I used to have only a 40gb hd.. then when i built the new rig i got the 500gb just for lawls....never thought id fill it up...

Before i know it i cant defragment, lol!

 

[Landorf]

kickass! i just needed somebody to give me a strong opinion and it sounds like the 5400 takes the cake. I'm going to go ahead and go for it, thanks for the input!

 

[KurrentEweser]

After getting used to running 7200 rpm drives in laptops, I'll never run a 5400 rpm drive ever again. I only use 5400 rpm drives in external USB enclosures. My Hitachi only reaches 40c during defragging and idles at 33c. Avoid Seagate 7200 rpm drives. As they do run hot.

I have no need to have 250mb of online storage. How many people do? When my internal drive starts filling up, I just dump the unused data to slower external drives. What's worse, losing 250mb of data or 100mb of data when the drive decides to go bad?

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I tend to keep my important data backed up on all of my PC's, most files I have I can either recover from DVD's/CD's or are on more than one PC. I like the larger drive because I don't have any external drives (don't want to carry them around either) and most of the stuff on mine is movies that I've ripped from DVD's and game data. A large drive also helps when you try to dual-boot.