Hard drive upgrade question

[Chris2wire]

Bought a laptop. Current hard drive is 4200rpm, ATA-7. Claims latency of 7.2 and average seek of 10 and 11.

Ok, so its ata-7 right...

Im upgrading because I want more size... Like 80g. My question is... What if I went to 5400rpm and ata-6? The rpm would be faster but the 'standard' would be the older ata-6, and possibly slower (100mbs vs 133mbs)...


Which matters more? Or does it plainly come down to lower seek times and latency times?

And is the 4200rpm ata-7 a strategically better choice due to laptop battery usage?

I dunno, if theres any hard drive experts gimme your thoughts... I know this question is all over the place, but so if my confusion. So, help me out if you can.

 

[V00D00]

The interface difference doesn't matter, the max speed is only attained for a fraction of a second if the requested contents are already in the hard drive's buffer.

The drive will definitely be much faster since it's 5400rpm. It should have lower latency, and higher sequential transfer rate.

You will get a significant hit in terms of battery life, but I've never seen any numbers. I have my laptop plugged in most of the time, I would love to throw in a 5400rpm drive if I ever run out of space. Also, remember that hard drives are always getting better. Better doesn't always just mean faster and bigger, they improve the power efficiency too. It could be possible that the newer 5400 rpm drive draws just as much power as the 4200. If you know the model numbers of the drives (you shuld be able to find them in the device manager) you can look up the power draw on the manufacturer's website.

If you need more space, you may want to look into a usb hard drive. Obviously it wouldn't be as portable, but if you have your laptop plugged in most of the time, that may be more convenient. If you travel and lot, it may not be so practical to always have to find an outlet. Just a possible suggestion.