Will Laptop HDD upgrade from 5k+ - 7k+rpm be worth it?

[jiewmeng]

I have a Acer Aspire 5920G.

- Intel C2D T9300

- 4 GB DDR2

- 320GB HDD

Will it be a good idea to upgrade the HDD to a 7k+ RPM 1? I think that the HDD is the bottleneck alot of times

[allen2]

Without the make and model of the actual drive, i can't say that it will be a lot better for sure but it might help a little. You might also be interested in momentus xt hydrid hard drive.

[CoffeeFiend]

I think that the HDD is the bottleneck alot of times

Upgrading based on an assumption might not be the best way to go. I would first find out why it's slow, and then try to fix that. It would help to know what you find to be slow in particular (general purpose apps? gaming? browsing the web? encoding video? something else?)

As for the speed update, it's not that clear cut either. Many tasks don't really benefit much from it, and even when a particular task does the gain can vary quite a bit depending on which drive you had and which one you're replacing it with. But then again, if it's disk latency making it sluggish then a SSD might be a better pick.

People that will blindly tell you "OMG a 7200rpm drive is like, MUCH faster!!1!" tend to just say that because they've heard it and are blindly repeating that, not that they have actual first-hand experience or knowledge about it...

[Ponch]

You might also be interested in momentus xt hydrid hard drive.

I've checked that few weeks ago, it seems there are lots of problems that "should have been" fixed by numerous firmware updates but from what I read in their forums, it is not perfect yet.

[pointertovoid]

Yes, the Hdd is the bottleneck. Even more so with a 5400rpm 2.5" combined with a C2D.

Yes, upgrading to 7200rpm will make a big difference. But a good 7200rpm would be even better. Focus on random access time.

No 10,000 nor 15,000rpm disk exist for laptops as far as I know. Velociraptors are too thick to fit. Scsi are not compatible.

A pure SSD would be much better. I bought a used Vertex 30GB for $100 on eBay (.com or .de). Not all SSD are equal.