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Upgrading laptop, memory or hard drive?

D

djxlee

Member
Ok, so I just bought a Dell 700m laptop with 256mb ram and 40gb 4200rpm hard drive. I want to upgrade so my speed is faster and here's my question:

Which upgrade path leads to better overall performance?

1x 1gb ram (pc2700) (in addition to the 256mb ram already installed)
Cost: approx. $200

or

1x512 (in addition to the 256mb ram already installed)
PLUS
Hitachi 60gb 7200rpm hard drive
Cost: approx. $250

I don't care much about hard drive space, although more is nice... I'm generally looking to reduce boot times and general performance when watching dvds, listening to music, using office xp and web surfing...

So which route would you guys go with?

Besides, is there a larger 7200rpm drive coming soon?
 
It's amazing the difference between a 7200 and 4200 RPM drive. Go for it.

Actually, if you only have 256 ram, it's amazing the difference 756 would make.

Ok, they'd both be easily worth it; I'd go for the ram first though; 256 isn't enough to do anything these days.

EDIT: That is, I'd get a 512 stick to add in; don't bother with a one gigger.
 
Originally posted by: bobsmith1492
It's amazing the difference between a 7200 and 4200 RPM drive. Go for it.

Actually, if you only have 256 ram, it's amazing the difference 756 would make.

Ok, they'd both be easily worth it; I'd go for the ram first though; 256 isn't enough to do anything these days.

EDIT: That is, I'd get a 512 stick to add in; don't bother with a one gigger.
Click to expand...


I just did the same upgrade on my Dell 600m the 60GB 7200 Drive makes such a huge difference its not even funny.
 
option two makes the most sense in performance for the buck. U will get an increase in performance on 512mb of ram upgrade alone...couple that with the hard drive upgrade...well that should off set any amount of ram you are missing. Faster swap time if you need it...also make sure to set the page file right...maximum of 384 i would think would be great unless you do some heavy task intensive stuff
 
Upgrade to at least 1 GB (2 GB if you can) then you can put your most commonly used applications into a RAM Disk. Not only will it be MUCH faster, but you can also spin down your hard drive to save power.
 
I doubt he could install 2gb without killin his warranty... so option 2 is the best of the ones he listed.



Will G.
 
Why would 2gb kill his warranty? That doesn't make any sense unless Dell is more ****** up than I know about... I would also go with option 2. An extra 512 is plenty for windows XP under most conditions, and you can always upgrade the other 256 stick later. The difference between 7200rpm and 4200rpm is like nite and day. That will be the big upgrade, definitely go for it.
 
Because unless he wanted to drop alot of money on 2 - 1gb sticks. He would purchase 4 - 512 sticks which would require him to open his laptop to get at any internal sticks..



Will G.
 
$150 USD for the 60gig, $110 for the 40gig version @ www.mwave.com
HITACHI/IBM 2.5" 40GB 14R9200 NOTEBOOK HDD 9.5MM 7200RPM 8 MB UATA100
HITACHI/IBM 2.5" 60GB 08K0939/08K0889 NOTEBOOK HDD 9.5MM 7200RPM 8 MB UATA100
Both are OEM.
 
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