What's better ram or a 7200rpm hd in my laptop

[lotust]

Hey guys, I got a dual core toshiba laptop with 4th ram and a 320gb 5400rpm drive. What will be the best bang for the buck upgrade. A 500gb 7200 rpm drive or 8gb ram? The ram is 2x the price of the HD so I hope the HD is the way to go 🙂

 

[Brainonska511]

I would say, go with the hard drive, since you already have 4GB of RAM.

 

[lotust]

I would say, go with the hard drive, since you already have 4GB of RAM.

thanks that's what I was thinking too.

 

[Lanyap]

Do you run anything that needs more than 4GB RAM?

I say go with the HD upgrade also.

 

[lotust]

Do you run anything that needs more than 4GB RAM?

I say go with the HD upgrade also.

I dont think so. Maybe some photoshop cs3

 

[flexy]

8GB is a little overkill until you plan serious video editing or similar.

 

[WackyDan]

You running a 32 bit or 64 bit install? That matters.

 

[lotust]

You running a 32 bit or 64 bit install? That matters.

Whoops yeah I left out key information. I'm running 64bit

 

[wirednuts]

a good ssd drive is the best upgrade

 

[RaistlinZ]

SSD for sure. A 7200 rpm drive won't really give you a huge performance boost. An SSD will change your life, seriously.

 

[lotust]

What about a hybrid drive? I really need at least 320gb so SSD is out 🙁

 

[GFORCE100]

Hey guys, I got a dual core toshiba laptop with 4th ram and a 320gb 5400rpm drive. What will be the best bang for the buck upgrade. A 500gb 7200 rpm drive or 8gb ram? The ram is 2x the price of the HD so I hope the HD is the way to go 🙂

IMHO in your case a 7200rpm HDD is your first point of call, just don't expect too much. If your wallet can stretch a SSD is the best way to go, the low access times coupled with transfer rates (in the 100's of MB/s range) is the ideal way to go on this one.

 

[mwmorph]

I have the 7200rpm 500GB Segate Momentus XT and it's pretty good. Definitely not SSD speeds but it works well as a OS drive. Boot up and responsiveness is much, much faster than my previous laptop (i7 720qm, 4GB ram, 320GB WD Caviar Blue 7200rpm v.s. i7 2720QM, 8gb ram, 500GB Momentus XT).

It's no SSD but it is leaps and bounds faster than a conventional HDD, though it does depend on usage patterns. For example using it as a boot drive with drivers and things I use all the time like my internet browser and other programs will improve application start rates very well, but it's not magic. Just pure sequential copying of files and whatnot will not be sped up.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/seagate-momentus-xt-hybrid-hard-drive-ssd,2638-4.html

 

[lotust]

I have the 7200rpm 500GB Segate Momentus XT and it's pretty good. Definitely not SSD speeds but it works well as a OS drive. Boot up and responsiveness is much, much faster than my previous laptop (i7 720qm, 4GB ram, 320GB WD Caviar Blue 7200rpm v.s. i7 2720QM, 8gb ram, 500GB Momentus XT).

It's no SSD but it is leaps and bounds faster than a conventional HDD, though it does depend on usage patterns. For example using it as a boot drive with drivers and things I use all the time like my internet browser and other programs will improve application start rates very well, but it's not magic. Just pure sequential copying of files and whatnot will not be sped up.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/seagate-momentus-xt-hybrid-hard-drive-ssd,2638-4.html

thanks man. I think I will go for it.

 

[wpcoe]

I'd concur with the HDD upgrade. With the upgrade to 8GB RAM, you'd probably be stuck with two useless 2GB RAM modules. With the HDD upgrade, and an additional $10 or so, you can use your current 320GB HDD in an external enclosure as a backup or archive drive.

If you can afford it, I would also suggest the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive for a slight additional boost, especially with boot-up time.