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Best bang for the buck laptop upgrade

M

moretoys

Member
I've been searching forums here and at LaptopLogic for a good thread on this topic & haven't found a clear answer. I have a Toshiba M40 JM3 Specs here
I have found there is a fair amount of hard drive operation playing battle for middle earth between game areas, causing slow load times. I don't game on battery so tha isn't a concern in this senerio. I also notice the hard drive cashing when just browsing, which I suspect doesn't help my battery life. I often browse when on battery.

So my question is does a memory upgrade (512 to 1G) significantly help one or both of these type of occurances by less use of hard drive for system memory, and same question for upgrading to a faster hard drive. Is there any good threads or articles comparing upgrade options for laptops that also looks at gaming as well as battery life?

I know, 1G memory and a 7200 rpm drive would be nice, but I have a budget 🙁

Thanks...
 
Well, if the HD is a 4200rpm right now as the specs say, then I would definitely move to the 7200 over the ram.
 
I just wish I was in the US when buying this stuff. A 7200 drive is up over $300 and 512 memory is about $80. So you can see why I really would like some better info on the effect of each upgrade.
One only has me not eating fast food for a month, the other has me eating KD for a month 🙂
(mind you, I like KD)
 
Oh wow, hmm, that does make one pause...

What about a 5400 rpm hd? They are faster than a 4200 (obviously), and it might not hit the pcoketbook so hard.
 
I'm not an expert when it comes to laptops, but I'd think upgrading from that 4200-rpm HD would be pretty noticeable. It's hard to say how much gain you'd feel going to a 5400-rpm drive, but the leap to a 7200-rpm one would prolly seem like you got a new computer. :laugh:

If it tells you anything, I still have an old Gateway desktop machine with a 5400-rpm drive in it. It's painfully slow, and when I use a 'regular' machine with a 7200-rpm drive in it, the difference is like night & day. I'd prolly go nuts with a 4200-rpm drive, laptop or desktop. However, $300 is a heck of a price to pay for a 7200-rpm drive. :Q

Maybe you could get the extra RAM now, then wait awhile until prices come down to earth on a 7200-rpm drive. BTW, if you're hitting the page file on the HD during Web browsing (was that what you meant?), do you have a heck of a lot of things running in the background? 'Cuz I'd think that 512MB of RAM would be pretty good for most laptop usage (except heavy gaming or Photoshop, or unless you multi-task to the Nth degree or something).

Incidentally, Roguerower posted some info about 7200-rpm drives in the other thread I started earlier (the question about laptop HD speeds). [Thanks for your reply, BTW. 🙂 ] You might wanna check it out, as he said Seagate is supposed to be coming out with a 7200-rpm laptop drive soon. Don't know the price though.

EDIT: Another consideration with the HD will be the size. The bigger the drive, the more aereal density you'll get. So you can pick up a little speed there too. So maybe a big 5400 rpm drive would give you a tangible speed boost; whether that'll give you more bang for your buck than more RAM, I dunno. Tough call! 🙂
 
The hard drive is the better upgrade. If you had less than 512MB the memory would be the biggest problem. If you did a ton of multitasking, you should also upgrade the memory to 1G first, but that's generally not the way people use laptops.

Still, I'm confused by your question. Getting a 7200RPM laptop drive costs 3 times as much as as getting another 512MB of memory, so the idea the you can afford either one but not both is a little strange.
 
I have a similar question so I thought I would piggyback...anyone seen the fujitsu SATA laptop hd on newegg for $75? It supposedly has NCQ as well. It's only 5400 RPM, but...can that be real? Do laptops have SATA? I just got in on the i6000 deal, so I want to think about this upgrade for the crappy 4200 crap they ship out standard.

Fujitsu hd
 
Sonoma laptops have SATA. I don't know how many of them actually use it, though, because SATA notebook drives are still hard to find.
 
Thanks all, good feedback as always 🙂
Generally I'm getting the concensis is that the Hard Drive should improve performance more than another 512 stick of ram as most applications including games don't need more than 512 to keep from hitting the pagefile (thanks Ken90630 for reading my mind) unless you do a lot of multitasking.
Tostada, I was not thinking on getting a 7200 rpm drive cause of the extreme cost (for me right now anyway) that was just a suggestion (and a good one).
I think a 5400 is more in my range as I think there at least $100 cheaper for the same size. Where I have a 60G 4200 now, it sounds like if I want a significant performance increase I should look at at least an 80G 5400 due to the aereal density difference (I can get a Seagate Momentus 5400.2 80G for $189 for sure and a Samsung Spinpoint M 80G for $126)
Ken90630, I'm not sure why I get the hits to the hard drive while web browsing, I was originally thinking it was just low memory. I'll have to pay more attention & try shutting some background apps down.

Anyone have an opinion on if the Momentus is wrth the $63 extra? I know I should do my homework... but as I have you attention anyway 🙂

Thanks much.
 
Yeah, it sounds like getting a larger 5400-rpm HD will prolly give you the most bang for your buck right now. Maybe prices on 7200-rpm drives will come down in the next year or two, then you could consider upgrading again. If you're gonna do that, you might go with the Samsung now so you won't be as heavily invested if/when you decide to upgrade to a 7200-rpm one. I'd guess that either the Seagate or Samsung will prolly last you at least a couple years (if not more). 🙂
 
Pick up a Seagate 5400RPM (only 'cuz of the 5 year warranty, WD is offering 3 years on all drives now too tho) and another 512MB if you have the $$$ left. As you can see from LL's RPM Guide:

http://www.laptoplogic.com/resources/guides/35/1/1/

5400RPM is the best bang for the buck performance. An extra 512MB won't make a HUGE difference in general Windows performance, but you should notice a good jump going to 5400RPM.
 
Hmm 2 years more for 50% more money... think I'll risk the Samsung (which is 8M cache as well and 3 years waranty). That is almost enough for the other 512 🙂

Fbrdphreak, I read the article you linked (actualy before my post). It is a good read. If I could have found a similar article on 512 vs 1G memory, I likely wouldn't have needed the post.

Thanks everyone. I think I'm all set.
 
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