Which is Better (laptop HD)

[DerRickster]

Which would be faster

ATA-6 at 5400 RPM or SATA at 4200 RPM

Im planning on upgrading my laptop Hard Drive

[puntoMX]

More RPM will be faster .

[RyanVM]

Most definitely the higher RPM drive. The bigger question, however, is what interface your laptop actually supports. My guess is that if you're upgrading an older one, SATA is out the question anyway

[Bigbrit]

I totally agree with the other answers, RPM every time.

If you really want speed, look at Hitachi 7200rpm 2½" HD's

Installed for several clients, they are very pleased.

Little more to buy but worth it.

[Maleko]

defo RPM

[Zxian]

Like everyone said - higher RPM.

Also, chances are that your old laptop hard drive uses PATA (aka "IDE"). Only new computers (i.e. less than a year old) will have SATA, and even so, only certain models have it.

[LLXX]

Of course the 5400... neither of them is going to saturate either interface anyway.

I didn't even know laptops had SATA now

[puntoMX]

SATA is indeed used in laptops for some time; think about it: Fewer conductors to your drive

[RyanVM]

The only laptops I'm aware of which use SATA are the new Intel 945-based Core Solo/Duo laptops. I have no idea if there are any Turion-based laptops out there which use SATA drives, though I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.

[DerRickster]

I have a ASUS Z71V laptop which has a SATA interface through a PATA channel so I don't really get 'true' SATA performance. Which Hitachi 7200 drive are you refering to...I would like to get at least a 120 GB HD. For gaming purposes.

[DerRickster]

Get a load of this...I usually buy from newegg...but this was a deal I couldn't pass up. I was driving though Montana (live in Washington) so I called bestbuy (Bestbuy usually has a higher markup esp. comparing it to newegg in Missoula and asked if they got any notebook HD. I ended up buying a Seagate Momentus 5400.2 120GB 2.5" ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive - OEM for 179.99 w/o any sales tax. Newegg had it for 184.99 with 4.99 shipping. What a deal B)

[puntoMX]

Nice drive for a nice price, Seagate I think is one of the best drives you can get altrough that 7200rpm Hitachi drive was a nice one too.

[RyanVM]

I love Seagate

[Andromeda43]

That's a big problem with laptops as I see it.

What you got, is all you're gonna git. (more or less)

If you got IDE, then you can't change it to SATA.

Same with vid, sound, etc.

You might be able to increase the size of your HD, but not the type. (bios permitting, of course)

That's locked in by the IDE controller on the mobo.

Yes the higher the rpm, the faster the drive will be able to access data,

but on the other hand, the more current the drive motor draws and the

more heat it generates. It will kill a battery much faster and generate

much more heat that you have to worry about getting rid of.

Just put your hand on the case over your HD. If if feels hot to the touch,

your HD is probably already running fast enough. Set the power down time

for the HD in power management to 5 to 10 minutes to let the little guy cool

off between working sessions.

Before I got my current mobo, that has onboard SATA control, I did run a SATA drive on my old system, using a "Silicon Logic" PCI / SATA controller card. I even ran my old IDE Maxtor 60 gig drive off of that SATA controller, by using an IDE to SATA dongle on the back of my Maxtor drive. Both drives exibited transfer speeds in excess of 1000mb/min. I was blown away by the speed of that old IDE drive when run as a SATA drive.

Good Luck with your little laptop,

Andromeda43 B)

[RyanVM]

Actually, the tests I've shown show that 7200RPM laptop drives draw roughly the same if not less power as their 5400RPM counterparts. This can be attributed to the fact that the read heads get physically get to the data faster, which means less energy wasted seeking.