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320GB 5400RPM vs. 200GB 7200RPM, Which would you get?

post #1 of 32
2/23/08 at 1:32pm
Thread Starter 
I'm looking to spend a little tax money on a HDD upgrade, but I'm just a little curious what everyone else on here thinks about my options and what you would do if it were you?

I can either go with the 320GB Western Digitial SATA300 or a 200GB 7200RPM alternative.

Tom's Hardware has a review of some of the recent additions to the 320 5400RPM Drives and they say the performance is at or above any 7200RPM drives out there.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/02/...join_the_club/

What's your thoughts?

Also I'll be getting 2 of what ever it is and running raid 0 if that makes a difference in your opinions.
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post #2 of 32
2/23/08 at 1:39pm
I got single 320, and it loads games pretty darn fast.
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post #3 of 32
2/23/08 at 3:02pm
Thread Starter 
anyone else have an opinion trying to get an idea of what everyone feels, but do thank you achilles I'm kinda leaning towards the 320's but wanna see what everyone else thinks first.
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post #4 of 32
2/23/08 at 3:46pm
I mean the price to performance definitely suggests getting the 320 to me. I would get it as my primary but I already plan on using it as secondary.
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post #5 of 32
2/23/08 at 3:49pm
I've personally used both. It really depends on your needs. The 200GB/7200RPM drive is a bit faster, but it's not LEAPS and bounds. Obviously, the 320GB/5400RPM drive is bigger, so if you need/want more space, then that's the way to go.

Again, it all boils down to personal preference. A bit extra speed for less space, or more space for a bit less speed.
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post #6 of 32
2/23/08 at 4:02pm
I have the 200Gb and it's really fast for a laptop drive, and I'm very satisfied.

I don't currently have use for more space, but if I did, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to get a 320Gb drive. Sure, it's nice to be a bit faster, but running out of space is a pain in the ***. So do the math - how much will you need? If > 200Gb, get the bigger drive, end of story.

EDIT: after looking at the benchmarks - what I see is that they perform really well compared to the 7200rpms. They don't have the same raw transfer speed and access times, but are still impressive in real world tests. They probably also suffer from only having 8Mb cache - the 7k drives usually have 16. Still, the 5k drives seem like really good options.
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post #7 of 32
2/23/08 at 4:16pm
Thread Starter 
Yea it was the benches that kinda pulled me to the 320's. They seem to have as good or better performance than most of the 7200's out there and to me it seems kinda silly to spend the same and get less space for performance that may be better even by just a little or could actually be worse. I think the 320GB is the way to go, prices I'm looking at are 179.99 for the 320's and the prices of the 7200RPM 200's is about the same where I'm shopping does anyone have any better pricing on the 7200 200's that may change my mind if there is a deal where I can save a bunch of money over the 320's.
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post #8 of 32
2/23/08 at 4:29pm
I'd go with the 320GB Western Digitial SATA300 myself.
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post #9 of 32
2/23/08 at 5:08pm
I've got the lowest price of a 200 GB 7200 RPM drive as $176 shipped from zipzoomfly. Of course, you could probably do a bit cheaper getting it used somewhere but yeah, essentially its the same price as the 320 GB 5400 drive.

Note: I meant to say price to functionality earlier
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post #10 of 32
2/23/08 at 5:33pm
The WD 320GB is better than the Hitachi 200GB 7200 for pretty much everything but access time. To make an apples to apples comparison, you need to compare the first 200 gigs of the 320 GB to the entire 200 gigs of the 7.2. This mashup of charts (courtesy Tom's Hardware) shows what I mean. The 320 GB WD drive clearly outperforms the 7.2 drive across the first 200 GB. This is because the 320 GB drive has a higher data density, and can use the outer (and faster) portion of the disk platters for longer than the 7.2 drive can. And for what it's worth, the Hitachi drive has a random access time of 14.3ms vs 16.6ms for the WD one.

I saw the Hitachi for $140 after rebate at a major online retailer, and $180 for the WD.

Obviously the folks who bought the 200GB drives were buying the best that was available at the time, and it isn't really fair to compare the latest 5400 drives to ones that have been out for awhile.
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post #11 of 32
2/23/08 at 5:44pm
Thread Starter 
Yea to me the prices are so close and the performance is as well that going with the anything but the 320's doesnt make much sense, at least for what I use the laptop for the more storage the better to me I've already filled my 120 in about 2 weeks since I got my M1730. I would have sacraficed the extra space if price or performance made the 200's a better buy but everything points to the 320's as the better choice. I guess its 600GB of storage for my lappy, i wonder how fast I'll fill it up? knowing my downloading and all the games I wanna play I give it 2 months.
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post #12 of 32
2/24/08 at 12:16am
I asked the same question a few weeks ago and decided to go with the 320GB 5400 Western Digital drive. The benchmarks clearly show it being faster than the Hitachi 60GB 7200 drive I originally had. Benchmarks of newer drives also show it really compares favorably, even out performs the largest 7200rpm drives available.

Here is the thread from a few weeks ago showing the benchmark results of many users and different drives: http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=211136

My concern was giving up speed for the extra space, for me both are a concern and factors in my choice, I feel like I made no compromise, the drive is huge and very fast.


Azureal
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post #13 of 32
2/24/08 at 1:03am
i use the 320 and a 250 wd both 5400rpm and get desktop speeds in RAID with 8ms response time and over 120mb/s in read/write.
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post #14 of 32
2/24/08 at 1:02pm
I have a PATA and SATA (momentus) 100gb 7200rpm drives and both perform basically the same

*I should have bought the 250gb PATA (was for 9300), and the notebook came with the other one, which is almost full

I'll show the speeds from HD tune (tach doesnt work in Vista)
There is no point buying a 100gb 7200rpm drive is my point



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post #15 of 32
2/24/08 at 4:07pm
I just got 320 GB WD, and I absolutely like it. Way better than 120 GB that I had before.
It's fast, and loading time is a breeze.
However, you're gonna sacrifice your battery life. I lost almost 20-25 minutes battery life since the upgrading. But if you're gonna use it as desktop replacement, it's not gonna be a problem for you.
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post #16 of 32
2/24/08 at 8:18pm
Thread Starter 
if the drive spins slower why the loss in battery life?
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post #17 of 32
2/24/08 at 8:54pm
Take a look at this chart. The WD drive uses the second highest amount of power out of the drives tested. I think it's worth it, though, as long as mobility isn't the top priority.
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post #18 of 32
2/24/08 at 10:40pm
whats funny about your chart with the serial numbers altoid is that it made me take out my internal drive and check, I was sure it was a travelstar, but turns out I have a pair of seagates (sata & pata) lol

I'll never make detective
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post #19 of 32
2/24/08 at 11:46pm
ordered the 320GB drive, figure I will soon need the extra 100gb over getting a 200gb 7200rpm one

thanks
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post #20 of 32
2/25/08 at 11:42am
if the prices were equal, and i didn't already have my 200gb drive, i'd actually have gone with the 320gb, but, i can't complain about the 200gb drive. the next step will be to go up to the 500gb, since i always seem to run out of space, but that won't be for awhile. games nowadays take up so much space, and running some of my older games off iso's takes up that much more space, since you need the iso on the drive too.
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