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7200rpm hdd or longer battery life?

I

imported_itr

Senior member
i won't be doing anything intensive on this laptop. i'm tied between either the 7200rpm hdd upgrade or use the included 4200rpm hdd. the trade off is: if i go with a 7200rpm hdd, my battery life will decrease (~10%?) but my boot times would decrease. which option should i choose?
 
Yeah, Tom's Hardware did a comparison article awhile back which showed that the 7200rpm hard drive only dropped battery life by like 4 minutes over the 4200rpm drives.
 
even a 16mb cache isn't needed. For basic use, you wont even notice the difference between a high density 5400rpm drive and a 7200 rpm drive. The difference between 4200 and 5400 are night and day, however, so dont go with a 4200 rpm drive.
 
I know the 16MB cache isn't a big deal but for the same price as a 8mb cache 5400 rpm those drives are a steal, and 7200rpm drives will make much more noise and are far more expensive cheapest ones are 199 that I found on newegg when they used to sell them.
 
I've got a 40GB 4200RPM 2MB cache Fujitsu in my Gateway, I've been thinking about getting an 80GB or a 100GB, 7200 RPM ones are really expensive, so I was thinking of getting an 80 or 100 5400RPM with 8MB cache, this 16MB cache is even better (but won't be of as much use as the 2MB vs 8MB advantage). 80 or 100 5400/8MB were going for $100-$110 shipped (both were about the same price with shipping added) on ebay, I guess that's the cheapest price?
 
Originally posted by: unfalliblekrutch
even a 16mb cache isn't needed. For basic use, you wont even notice the difference between a high density 5400rpm drive and a 7200 rpm drive. The difference between 4200 and 5400 are night and day, however, so dont go with a 4200 rpm drive.
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So a 33.3% increase in RPM doesn't matter, but a 28.6% increase is night and day?

I think it was Hitachi's specs that I was looking at, and their 7200 RPM laptop drives didn't use any more power than most 5400 RPM drives. Obviously things are subjective based on the exact hard drives you're talking about, but in general RPM doesn't change battery life. You could probably find instances where a faster drive actually saves battery life because it spends less time accessing.
 
Originally posted by: Tostada
Originally posted by: unfalliblekrutch
even a 16mb cache isn't needed. For basic use, you wont even notice the difference between a high density 5400rpm drive and a 7200 rpm drive. The difference between 4200 and 5400 are night and day, however, so dont go with a 4200 rpm drive.
Click to expand...

So a 33.3% increase in RPM doesn't matter, but a 28.6% increase is night and day?

I think it was Hitachi's specs that I was looking at, and their 7200 RPM laptop drives didn't use any more power than most 5400 RPM drives. Obviously things are subjective based on the exact hard drives you're talking about, but in general RPM doesn't change battery life. You could probably find instances where a faster drive actually saves battery life because it spends less time accessing.
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I was thinking that as well.
 
Originally posted by: 0ptimist
I've got a 40GB 4200RPM 2MB cache Fujitsu in my Gateway, I've been thinking about getting an 80GB or a 100GB, 7200 RPM ones are really expensive, so I was thinking of getting an 80 or 100 5400RPM with 8MB cache, this 16MB cache is even better (but won't be of as much use as the 2MB vs 8MB advantage). 80 or 100 5400/8MB were going for $100-$110 shipped (both were about the same price with shipping added) on ebay, I guess that's the cheapest price?
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You can get a hitachi travelstar 7k60 for 153 bucks at gateway.com
 
I recently went from a 40GNX to a 7k60 and it is much faster. However, since my T40's hard drive is right in the palm rest, my right wrist quickly becomes hot which is annoying. Despite the laptop logic review, battery life is noticably down more than 10%.
 
Originally posted by: Herr Yunta
I recently went from a 40GNX to a 7k60 and it is much faster. However, since my T40's hard drive is right in the palm rest, my right wrist quickly becomes hot which is annoying. Despite the laptop logic review, battery life is noticably down more than 10%.
Click to expand...

The only difference in the power consumption of those two drives is in startup, where the 7k60 uses 10% more power. The only other possible explanation is that the fan is running a lot more, but that shouldn't anywhere close to > 10% power consumption.
 
Originally posted by: sciencewhiz
Originally posted by: Herr Yunta
I recently went from a 40GNX to a 7k60 and it is much faster. However, since my T40's hard drive is right in the palm rest, my right wrist quickly becomes hot which is annoying. Despite the laptop logic review, battery life is noticably down more than 10%.
Click to expand...

The only difference in the power consumption of those two drives is in startup, where the 7k60 uses 10% more power. The only other possible explanation is that the fan is running a lot more, but that shouldn't anywhere close to > 10% power consumption.
Click to expand...


Nice to see you finally agree that faster drives are the way to go...

 
Originally posted by: dnuggett
Nice to see you finally agree that faster drives are the way to go...
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I had expected the power consumption would have decreased since the last time we had this discussion (November '03). However, the 7k60 is the same, the difference the 4200rpm drive. Previously it was the 40GN, now it's the 40GNX, which unfortunately draws more power. The speed of the new drive increased significantly, but at the cost of the same power consumption as the 7200rpm drive, negating any reason to get the slower drive.
 
There is a new generation of 5400 rpm drives, namely my 5K100 which runs cooler and quieter in my T41 than does my 7K60 or E7K60. Temperatures run about 8 degrees Celsius less when measured by Centrino Hardware Control. If one is going to spend the money on a 7200 rpm drive, I would consider the new 7K100 since it is quieter, cooler and draws less power than the 7K60.
 
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