NotebookForums.com › Forums › General Notebook Discussions › Notebook Forums - General › hard drives/ brand names/ speed vs speed
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

hard drives/ brand names/ speed vs speed

post #1 of 12
6/27/06 at 1:55am
Thread Starter 
im looking at newegg for a new hard drive for an older laptop i got im thinkin something like 40-60gb space but i want either 5400 or 7200 rpm thing is this lappy is a p4 2ghz 1gb ram and i dont really wanna spend over a hundred for a 7200rpm drive ,i dont wanna get a used one i would feel better getting a new one to avoid any complications....so newegg has a 7k60 for like 95 i MIGHT get it but i see several other drives 5400rpm for $55-65 range im leaning towards these. what brand is best hitachi ,western digital,samsung seagate etc. and is 5400rpm from one brand faster than 5400rpm from a different brand ,i noticed in the descriptions newegg has some drives say fast and efficient while others say cool &quiet ...how much of a difference is in a brand

other things i see is one drive has 2mb cache other has 8mb but they both have same seek time and latency times but are the same price
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 12
6/27/06 at 2:07am
Thread Starter 
also i should mention the drive in there now is 20gb 4200rpm that takes a little over a minute to fully boot to windows on start-up , my parents who use it want it faster i know a faster rpm quicker the boot right but is 7200 far more significant than 5400
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 12
6/27/06 at 4:12pm
For regular use you will not notice a difference in 5400rpm drives from brand to brand. Most likely you'd only see them in benchmarks. The biggest jump in speed is going from a 4200 to a 5400 rpm drive. The difference between a 7200 and a 5400 will not be that much if all you're doing is running office app's & surfing the net (ia 7200 might get you an few extra seconds over a 5400 on startup time, but it won't ne that much). If you do a lot of HDD intense stuff (certain games, video/music encoding, etc) then the jump from 5400 to 7200 will be more noticable.

I bought two 40GB 5400 drives a few months back, a Samsung and a Fujitsu. Both have been great and super quiet so far.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 12
6/27/06 at 4:34pm
get a 7200RPM hitachi w/8MB cache. you'll learn to love it.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 12
6/27/06 at 5:59pm
I've used some of those HD brands you've mentioned in the past.. I've stuck with just one, and it's Seagate. Some people here know that I'm a Seagate fanboy, but that's because of my personal experience with both their desktop and notebook HDs.. I find it to be the most quiet out of all those brands mentioned, and I never had any problems with them. Speed-wise.. you won't notice the difference between those. But another thing that I like about seagate is their 5 year warranty, as opposed to the 3 year that the other manufacturers offer.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 12
6/27/06 at 7:17pm
I have several hitachi notebook drives and love them. Never had a problem. I noticed a difference with the 7200 rpm over the 5400, but on that older laptop?? Maybe look into a used CPU, those p4s are easy to come by now too
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 12
6/27/06 at 7:17pm
yeah, i'm partially a seagate fan too. i've had a variety (toshiba, ibm, seagate, maxtor, WD, quantum, etc.) and i just like the seagate drives the most. of the 5 drives i use most now, 4 are seagates and 1 is maxtor. 2 laptop and 3 deaktop as externals, and between them, 1.6TB. usually, i just buy the cheapest $/gb drives, but i look out most for the seagate ones. i got a 400gb on sale on black friday many years ago (i think it is somewhere around 3 to 5 years ago (though if that puts it before the age of 400gb drives, then oops), which puts it almost out of warranty) and it still works perfectly fine. just got a 500gb one from outpost.com a little while back. i think just the comfort of that 5 year warranty is nice, though, i've never really had a HD fail on me. yeah, so of all my drives, i thinkn they're the quietest
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 12
6/27/06 at 8:00pm
Thread Starter 
well since my parents use it its strickly for internet surf and cheezy pc games like solitaire ,the only complaint they have is slow boot time so i figure 7200rpm and extra storage 40gb &up just incase but then i see some nice priced 5400 and wondering is it a real big boost from 4200 ,you think i can get windows up in 30 seconds with a 5400
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 12
6/27/06 at 8:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SagerNP4791
well since my parents use it its strickly for internet surf and cheezy pc games like solitaire ,the only complaint they have is slow boot time so i figure 7200rpm and extra storage 40gb &up just incase but then i see some nice priced 5400 and wondering is it a real big boost from 4200 ,you think i can get windows up in 30 seconds with a 5400
yes. Mine boots in under 30 s. Like I said going from 4200 to 5400 is the most notable jump. The difference between 5400 and 7200 is much less.

Having a clean installation of windows will also help greatly if the drive hasn't been formatted in a long time.
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 12
6/28/06 at 1:24am
for desktops i always use WD, for laptops Hitachi/IBM....you cant go wrong!
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 12
6/28/06 at 12:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by abf
for desktops i always use WD, for laptops Hitachi/IBM....you cant go wrong!

I've actually had a WD HD crap out on me.. I had a desktop one and first, it started making a loud noise, then it just stopped working after having it for two days.. Got it replaced, but the new one was also making a weird noise. Like it's not reading smoothly. I didn't bother waiting to see if it will result in hardware failure like the last one, so I quickly returned it and never looked at WD's again.
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 12
6/28/06 at 6:45pm
i am using a WD (40gb 7200rpm) in my desktop for well over 2 years now (the original drive in that computer was an 18gb 5400 maxtor... it buzzed kinda loud) the WD has been quieter and faster (7200rpm vs 5400rpm of course) than the maxtor (now merged with seagate)....so i am liking WD for desktops...especially the RAPTOR! its th3 $eX

and for laptops, my 7200rpm hitachi in my Uniwill is much quieter than the 5400 Toshiba in my thinkpad, I also used to re-sell used IBM/Hitachi drives on ebay....approximatly only 1 out of 50 would be defunct (remember...they were USED... at least a good 3 or 4 years if not more, and before I recieved them they were handled like crap.)
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Notebook Forums - General
NotebookForums.com › Forums › General Notebook Discussions › Notebook Forums - General › hard drives/ brand names/ speed vs speed