Laptop Hard Drive - Latency - Seek Time Speed ??'s

[jamautosound]

80 GB - 5400 rpm
Average Latency: 5.56ms
Average Seek Time: 12ms

80 GB - 7200 rpm
Average Latency: 4.2ms
Average Seek Time: 10ms

Can you really notice a difference?

Is it worth an upgrade?

Any 100-120 GB 7200 drives?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts / experiences.

 

[andrewbabcock]

There are 100 gb hdd, as in my computer, but i don't know about 120 gb. New Egg doesn't have anything over 80 gig but i will check elsewhere.

 

[mparr1708]

Originally posted by: jamautosound
80 GB - 5400 rpm
Average Latency: 5.56ms
Average Seek Time: 12ms

80 GB - 7200 rpm
Average Latency: 4.2ms
Average Seek Time: 10ms

Can you really notice a difference?

Is it worth an upgrade?

Any 100-120 GB 7200 drives?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts / experiences.

The difference is noticeable when if you are doing a lot of multitasking, doing heavy gaming (Most notably when you load into a new level), or doing a lot of cad or graphics work. A 5400 rpm drive is fine for most average users. The difference is also less noticeable with a decent amount of memory in your machine (With more memory in your machine windows has to swap to the HD less).

 

[inhotep]

Originally posted by: jamautosound
80 GB - 5400 rpm
Average Latency: 5.56ms
Average Seek Time: 12ms

80 GB - 7200 rpm
Average Latency: 4.2ms
Average Seek Time: 10ms

Can you really notice a difference?

Is it worth an upgrade?

Any 100-120 GB 7200 drives?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts / experiences.

I don't think performance increase is significantly noticeable between those 2 spec.s thus in my opinion it's not worth upgrading. A SATA 72k HD w/8m buffer I think may be worth upgrading. There are 100+ 72k 2.5 drives.

I upgrade to a 72k 8m buffer HDD only because my previous hD was a 42k 2m buffer hd.

 

[andrewbabcock]

Originally posted by: inhotep

Originally posted by: jamautosound
80 GB - 5400 rpm
Average Latency: 5.56ms
Average Seek Time: 12ms

80 GB - 7200 rpm
Average Latency: 4.2ms
Average Seek Time: 10ms

Can you really notice a difference?

Is it worth an upgrade?

Any 100-120 GB 7200 drives?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts / experiences.

I don't think performance increase is significantly noticeable between those 2 spec.s thus in my opinion it's not worth upgrading. A SATA 72k HD w/8m buffer I think may be worth upgrading. There are 100+ 72k 2.5 drives.

I upgrade to a 72k 8m buffer HDD only because my previous hD was a 42k 2m buffer hd.

Depending on what he is doing, he might see a bigger increase in performance with a 5400 RPM 16mb buffer like in IBMs. I think that a 5400 rpm 16 mb cache may beat out a 7200 rpm 8 mb cache in many things. Not all but many. You would be suprised at the amount of performance you get from more cache across th board.(processors too)

 

[inhotep]

Originally posted by: andrewbabcock

Originally posted by: inhotep

Originally posted by: jamautosound
80 GB - 5400 rpm
Average Latency: 5.56ms
Average Seek Time: 12ms

80 GB - 7200 rpm
Average Latency: 4.2ms
Average Seek Time: 10ms

Can you really notice a difference?

Is it worth an upgrade?

Any 100-120 GB 7200 drives?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts / experiences.

I don't think performance increase is significantly noticeable between those 2 spec.s thus in my opinion it's not worth upgrading. A SATA 72k HD w/8m buffer I think may be worth upgrading. There are 100+ 72k 2.5 drives.

I upgrade to a 72k 8m buffer HDD only because my previous hD was a 42k 2m buffer hd.

Depending on what he is doing, he might see a bigger increase in performance with a 5400 RPM 16mb buffer like in IBMs. I think that a 5400 rpm 16 mb cache may beat out a 7200 rpm 8 mb cache in many things. Not all but many. You would be suprised at the amount of performance you get from more cache across th board.(processors too)

I agree 16m does make a big difference, and I assumed he is asking about the 54k 8m vs. 72k 8m. I dono if there are any 72k 16m buffer 2.5s thou. That would be good upgrade.

 

[addoraa]

I dono if there are any 72k 16m buffer 2.5s thou. That would be good upgrade.

Only one that I know of: Toshiba MK5024GAY, which is a 50gb, 16mb cache, 7200rpm, 2.5 drive. Have been using one in my Toshiba lappy for alittle over a year now. Expensive for 50gb's and hard to come by.

Andy

 

[jamautosound]

Thanks for all the replies.

I was mostly comparing those particular specs, I found them both at NewEgg btw. Both of them are 8mb cache drives.

It just didn't seem like much of a jump in perfomance on the seek time speeds. I thought it would be higher. But I wasn't sure if that made a difference or not in real world performance.

My uses: gaming, rendering and graphics work, not necessarily in that order.

 

[deathwalker]

All that crap is really overrated. However, the old 4200 rpm drives will really drag the system operation down vs. a 5400 or 7200 rpm drive. But the differance between a 5400 and 7200 is often unnoticeable to the avg. user.

 

[andrewbabcock]

Originally posted by: deathwalker
All that crap is really overrated. However, the old 4200 rpm drives will really drag the system operation down vs. a 5400 or 7200 rpm drive. But the differance between a 5400 and 7200 is often unnoticeable to the avg. user.

But an average user will notice the cache. A 7200 rpm hdd with a 16 mb buffer actually performs better in many places, and just the same in others, as a 10k rpm drive like a raptor because raptors only have 8mb cache so far.

 

[deathwalker]

Originally posted by: andrewbabcock

Originally posted by: deathwalker
All that crap is really overrated. However, the old 4200 rpm drives will really drag the system operation down vs. a 5400 or 7200 rpm drive. But the differance between a 5400 and 7200 is often unnoticeable to the avg. user.

But an average user will notice the cache. A 7200 rpm hdd with a 16 mb buffer actually performs better in many places, and just the same in others, as a 10k rpm drive like a raptor because raptors only have 8mb cache so far.

Agreed!!

 

[jamautosound]

Originally posted by: andrewbabcock
There are 100 gb hdd, as in my computer, but i don't know about 120 gb. New Egg doesn't have anything over 80 gig but i will check elsewhere.

Who makes your hard drive? If you don't mind. Also do you know the cache size?

 

[andrewbabcock]

Originally posted by: jamautosound

Originally posted by: andrewbabcock
There are 100 gb hdd, as in my computer, but i don't know about 120 gb. New Egg doesn't have anything over 80 gig but i will check elsewhere.

Who makes your hard drive? If you don't mind. Also do you know the cache size?

I don't have my computer with me at the moment to open Everest but i think i remember that it was Hitachi with an 8mb buffer. The performance of a 5400 rpm 16mb buffer vs. 7200 rpm 8mb buffer is very similar but i went with a faster spinning drive for gaming performance and other performance-heavy apps.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Its funny you should ask I'm working on a massive 2.5" HDD roundup. I don't have a 5400RPM 16MB cache drive yet, but now that you all reminded me I will be sure to get one. We've got the 100GB 7200RPM drives, 120GB 5400RPM & 4200RPM drives, and everything in between.

 

[jamautosound]

Originally posted by: andrewbabcock
I don't have my computer with me at the moment to open Everest but i think i remember that it was Hitachi with an 8mb buffer. The performance of a 5400 rpm 16mb buffer vs. 7200 rpm 8mb buffer is very similar but i went with a faster spinning drive for gaming performance and other performance-heavy apps.

Thanks Andrew, for the quick reply.

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Its funny you should ask I'm working on a massive 2.5" HDD roundup. I don't have a 5400RPM 16MB cache drive yet, but now that you all reminded me I will be sure to get one. We've got the 100GB 7200RPM drives, 120GB 5400RPM & 4200RPM drives, and everything in between.

Man, I just sold a 40 gb 5400rpm 16mb cache drive yesterday. In fact, it's packaged up in my car right now.

 

[andrewbabcock]

I would like to confirm that my drive is a Hitachi with 8 mb buffer. I prefer the 7200/8 drives but a 7200/16 would be uber great.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Download a program called Everest Home Edition to check complete system specs.

 

[andrewbabcock]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Download a program called Everest Home Edition to check complete system specs.

Thats how i got that information.

 

[cheesehead]

If you have less than a gig of RAM, upgrade that first.