7200rpm vs 5400rpm Hard Drives for Laptops

Is there a considerable difference that one is suretonotice if they elect to go for a 7200rpm drive over a 5400rpm. I donèt really see a big difference in desktop systems, justing looking for some info.

Thanks in advance.

 

Affects speed of access to info on drive, and battery usuage, higher rpms mean more juice to achive that, but im not sure of how much that affect will be/is.

 

I really do think that there is a substantial difference, it's not always immediately apparent in all applications and, some people are simply more observant than others to these details than others. This is assuming that you aren't a super-geek with the tech goods available to do an actual mechanical-data based analysis of what is actually going on inside your computer.
I have several computers and actually continue to use an old P2 450 mghz in my living room as an entertainment center, tv and 'vcr' (actually digital video recorder.) The more odds you have going against speed (in this case a much slower CPU, etc) the more obvious improvements of this type can be. Therefore the addition of a 7200 rpm drive, especially since WIndows or Linux is often using the drive in part as a memory cache, can be a noticeable improvement. Also don't forget that many programs spend a lot of their time constantly in the process of caching data, loading and unloading, from your hard drives.
Follow the logic here: While you might not see this happening on your much faster P3 or P4... It's your attention to these details, component by component, that eventually frees up your machine to be the kind of enjoyable beast that makes computing work less annoying and entertainment less noticeable and more entertaining... As it should be!

 

OK thanks for the replies I will look into a 7200rpm drive...

 

You probably won't even know the difference honestly.

 

I disagree. The slowest component on the machine is the hard disk.

7200rpm does make a difference on a laptop, which already has slower disk performance than a desktop, usually.

 

I believe there's a substantial difference in desktop systems, but don't you have to wonder why 5400 rpm drives are much more commonly sold for laptops then 7200 rpm drives? I just looked at newegg.com's page for Laptop Hard Drives and only 1 out of 13 is a 7200 rpm drive.

I'm wondering about a technical point here. Since laptop/notebook drives are smaller in diamater than drives for desktop PCs (2.5 inch vs. 3.5 inch), the read/write heads have a smaller area to cover. Right? So, does that mean that a 5400 rpm 2.5 inch drive really performs faster than a 5400 rpm 3.5 inch drive, relatively speaking? Could that be one reason for the scarce offerings of 7200 rpm 2.5inch drives?

 

IMO there's a huge difference in speed between 5400 and 7200 rpm drives. This is especially true on older systems with CPU's in the 600mhz to 1.2ghz range. My friends mom has an older Dell Latitude laptop running at 750mhz and she had a 20gb 5400rpm drive installed with 256mb RAM. We imaged the drive to a new 60gb 7200rpm drive and the increase in performance was nothing short of amazing. It booted up to the desktop in +/- 20 seconds instead of the minute (or more) it took with the older drive and just farting around in Windows was much quicker too... a fast drive can give these older systems a new lease on life. For people that aren't gaming, these older systems are usually all they need for email, basic web stuff, and using Word and Excel. The weakest link in these systems is the slow hard drives (and a lack RAM usually too). But if the RAM is at 256mb (preferably 512mb), the 7200rpm drives really do make a big difference.

 

the reason laptops usually have 5400RPM drives instead of 7200RPM drives is to conserve batter power. Physical dimensions have nothing to do with the performance of the drive. This is why the majority of gaming laptops have 7200RPM drives because they arent meant for long battery life, they are build for performance.

 

Thanks for all the feedback people. its nice to get feedback on things and this site is GREAT for it...

 

Just wondering how much more battery power a 7200rpm hard drive takes?

Also is it true they generate more heat? I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 running on a 5400rpm hard drive and that already gets pretty hot sometimes.

 

Please start a new thread, instead of attaching to an old one.

Thanks.