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Laptop Upgrade

T

thehstrybean

Diamond Member
Right now, my HP L2000 has a 5400RPM, Samsung Spinpoint M MP0603H HDD (Text). It's killin me. Firefox is loadin slow, VMware is slow, games are slow, ect. I can tell it's the HDD because it's always bein accessed. My question is this:
1) Go with another 5400RPM HDD, but with a 16mb cache,
OR
2) Get the Hitachi 7k100 / Seagate 7200.1 7200RPM notebook HDD? They both have 8mb caches.
3) Upgrade my RAM to 2GB...

Which will give me the greatest speed/performance increase? Thanks!
 
I've got 1 gig of RAM...My CPU is 1.8 GHz....None of that's the problem...I talked to lots of lappy guys and they all agree that I need a new HDD...
 
Any modern laptop can handle a 7200 RPM drive.

As for your questiion, I would much rather have a 7200 RPM drive with a smaller cache than a 5400 RPM with a bigger one.
 
If you do not plan to ran on batteries everytime, I will recommend the 7K hdd. Otherwise, stay with the 5400 rpm with 16 mb cache. With your 5400 RPM, you might want to do a benchmark and see where the chokepoint is at. It might just be a controller driver instead of the hdd.
 
Originally posted by: randomlinh
7200. altho, if your notebook wasn't designed for it.. i forsee burnage and/or corruption
Click to expand...

? That's the most idiotic thing I've read here in a long time. Hard drive rotation speed has zero dependence on whether the laptop was 'designed' for it.
 
Originally posted by: vegetation
Originally posted by: randomlinh
7200. altho, if your notebook wasn't designed for it.. i forsee burnage and/or corruption
Click to expand...

? That's the most idiotic thing I've read here in a long time. Hard drive rotation speed has zero dependence on whether the laptop was 'designed' for it.
Click to expand...

How so? If he places a 7200rpm drives that produces more heat into a space that is not speced to that heat can't that be an issue? I don't mean flames and corruption but I am asking seriously so please no flaming (haha no pun intended, LOL). Doesn't a 7200 rpm hard-drive produce more heat than a 5400 usually? Produce more vibration potentially? Just curious because I haven't bought a notebook in about three years and haven't kept up on the technology that goes into it too much.
 
Originally posted by: Jiggz
If you do not plan to ran on batteries everytime, I will recommend the 7K hdd. Otherwise, stay with the 5400 rpm with 16 mb cache. With your 5400 RPM, you might want to do a benchmark and see where the chokepoint is at. It might just be a controller driver instead of the hdd.
Click to expand...

With the current drives battery usage is not a concern. Thsi has been proven time and again, and discussed on these forums as well.
 
more ram or clean off the machine. no reason the current hard drive is causing the problems reported.
 
I'm having the same problem, trying to get a laptop to perform much faster than it already is doing:

3.2 GHz
80gb most likely an IDE 5k or 7k drive
512mb DDR 26/2700

I don't know what's causing the slowdowns and which part I should invest to upgrade

Can someone PLZ clarify.....
 
Originally posted by: D3kTrix
Sounds like you need to defrag 😛
Right now im on a 1.6mobile / 1GB / 40GB 5400RPM and FF loads instantly.
Click to expand...

defragged like 6 times in a row, nothing exciting so far, slightly better performance, but there was nothing to defrag in the beginning anyway, since it was after a restore and I am barely using the minimum that Windows XP would put the gigs into an HD, so I have like 90% free space.

is it normal to take a few seconds for windows to be displayed after you hit icons like my comp or my docs or like a shortcut, and then things speed up when you double click on them for the second time? it took Microsoft Antispyware an hour to scan the whole drive, well just over an hour, whereas on my other P4 desktop rig with very similar specs, lower clock speeds and twice the RAM and a SATA - takes like 3 minutes! What is going on, does HP suck at makin' laptops or am I just in a different world?
 
If you do not plan to ran on batteries everytime, I will recommend the 7K hdd.
Click to expand...

Modern 7200 drives don't draw all THAT much more power anymore. Frankly it's a no-brainer, going from a 5400 to a 7200 dramatically improves performance. I'd never own a laptop with anything less than a 7200 again.

The battery life on my Dell 5150 was virtually unaffected going from a 5400 to a 7200, and I'm VERY battery concious. Just buy a quality drive (avoid Fujitsu and Samsung). I prefer Toshiba or Hitachi.
 
Originally posted by: CalamitySymphony
If your HD is being accessed all the time, that means you need more RAM. Not a faster HD.
Click to expand...

its not just the rpm. an old 7200 rpm hd is going to be slower than a new one with data more densly packed on the platter. but yes, generally its faster. more ram is also nice.
 
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: CalamitySymphony
If your HD is being accessed all the time, that means you need more RAM. Not a faster HD.
Click to expand...

its not just the rpm. an old 7200 rpm hd is going to be slower than a new one with data more densly packed on the platter. but yes, generally its faster. more ram is also nice.
Click to expand...

That is why I recomended the 100GB model. The 7,200 RPM Hard Drives Have about 90% of the same performance of standard desktop drives. 5,400 RPM notebook drives with 16MB of cache have about 80-85% of the speed of a standard desktop hard drive.
 
Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin
If you do not plan to ran on batteries everytime, I will recommend the 7K hdd.
Click to expand...

Modern 7200 drives don't draw all THAT much more power anymore. Frankly it's a no-brainer, going from a 5400 to a 7200 dramatically improves performance. I'd never own a laptop with anything less than a 7200 again.

The battery life on my Dell 5150 was virtually unaffected going from a 5400 to a 7200, and I'm VERY battery concious. Just buy a quality drive (avoid Fujitsu and Samsung). I prefer Toshiba or Hitachi.
Click to expand...

What brand do you have? I'm torn between a louder Hitachi or a quieter but a little slower Seagate.
 
Definately the 7200RPM HDD. The Hitachi is probably a better value, so I'd go with that one. You mention you're running VMWare with "only" 1GB of RAM. Reconsider how much RAM you're actually using since each guest OS can use a significant amount of memory.
 
Originally posted by: thehstrybean
Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin
If you do not plan to ran on batteries everytime, I will recommend the 7K hdd.
Click to expand...

Modern 7200 drives don't draw all THAT much more power anymore. Frankly it's a no-brainer, going from a 5400 to a 7200 dramatically improves performance. I'd never own a laptop with anything less than a 7200 again.

The battery life on my Dell 5150 was virtually unaffected going from a 5400 to a 7200, and I'm VERY battery concious. Just buy a quality drive (avoid Fujitsu and Samsung). I prefer Toshiba or Hitachi.
Click to expand...

What brand do you have? I'm torn between a louder Hitachi or a quieter but a little slower Seagate.
Click to expand...

The differance in battery life between 7,200 RPM and 5,400 RPM amounts to less 2-4 minutes in most systems.

The noise differance is not all that great either, both drives emit about the same number of decibles. But the deal breaker it the price, Hitachi 7k100 costs about $200 and Seagate 200GB 7200.1 runs around $300. Personaly I would get the hitachi, it is cheaper and performs on PAR with seagate and excells with battery life. I have three drives in my desktop a Hitachi, Samsung, and Western Digital Drive. My Hitachi is by far the quietest of them all. I have an older 4GB Seagate but that is not a fair compairison.
 
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