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Laptop HD, 5400 or 7200

Muse

Muse

Lifer
The HD in my Lenovo Thinkpad T60 unexpectedly died, couldn't save the data. 🙁

I need to replace the drive. This XP laptop runs as my file server. The only application running on it AFAIK (besides Avira Free in the background) will be an MP3 ripper (averaging maybe an hour or two a day, from audio in from a USB sound card). Would a 5400RPM be better than a 7200RPM? If I don't need the speed, the lower RPM should have it running cooler and cooler is better. I've learned my lesson and the data is going to be on a Western Digital Elements 2TB HD connected by USB to the Thinkpad. I'll periodically back that up to another external HD. Wouldn't a 100GB 5400 2.5" HD suffice?
 
For general use, I'd prefer the faster drive whenever possible. But if you're just using it as a boot drive on a computer that doesn't get a lot of use, a 5400 rpm drive should be fine.
 
I think I'd get a WD Black. They are a good drive and you can use it elsewhere later down the road.

$50, but the cheapest 2.5" drive on Newegg is $45. Really, why not?
 
Sorry if I'm hijacking, but my question is similar. I want to replace my 250GB WD 5400 drive, which is painfully slow, with either a 750GB WD Scorpio Black @ 7200 RPM, or a Samsung 650GB @ 5400 RPM. The price difference makes the speed and room of the WD drive attractive, but I'm concerned about additional heat in my HP Pavilion dv6000 series laptop.
 
FishAk said:
Sorry if I'm hijacking, but my question is similar. I want to replace my 250GB WD 5400 drive, which is painfully slow, with either a 750GB WD Scorpio Black @ 7200 RPM, or a Samsung 650GB @ 5400 RPM. The price difference makes the speed and room of the WD drive attractive, but I'm concerned about additional heat in my HP Pavilion dv6000 series laptop.
Click to expand...

minor impact, get the 7200 rpm
 
Heat is a non-issue IMO with a WD Black. I have one just 'hanging out' in my sig lappy with zero issues.
 
In my case, the laptop is doing one of two things:

1. Serving data to one of my other machines on the network

2. Ripping MP3s from analog audio supplied by a USB sound card

I don't know why speed of the boot drive would be an issue. The speed of data across the network is a function of the wireless network, not the boot drive of the server machine. The data will actually be on a USB connected HD. The MP3 ripping will be to the USB HD, the boot drive should be little involved. I think a 5400's fast enough, which is what I ordered a couple of days ago at Amazon, $45 shipped, a 320GB Western Digital 2.5".
 
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