Laptop HDD speed...???

Why is it so hard to find an internal IDE laptop hard drive that spins up 7200rpm?

Thanks!

 

It shouldn't be so hard, they've been available for @ 5 years now. There are few makers tho, probably few stockists too.

Keep looking around, you'll find some online pretty easily. SATA or IDE? Which country are you in?

 

IDE, I can find loads of 5400 rpm. Is it because it would use up battery much faster?
I am wanting to put one in my IBM Thinkpad A31. I have found a couple on e-bay but they are very expensive in comparison to 5400 rpm's. I was going to go with the Seagate. No Hitachi! Are there any other Mfg's that would have a 7200 rpm IDE???
I am USA.

 

I've used a 60Gb 7200 for @ 5 years, I don't notice it as running hotter or reducing battery time significantly. mine is one of the early model Hitachis. Certainly speeds bootup and overall performance hugely over 4200's, not such a big improvement over the large cache 5400's though.

Hmm, I just looked through a few sites - you're right, getting very scarce now makers are putting all their energy into SATAII and newer technologies, I guess.

 

Thanks! So you feel that there would not be noticeable performance over a 5400 rpm?

 

Well, performance across brands does vary but if you have a 5400 with 8MB cache, I don't think the speed difference would be noticeable in normal use - measurable, yes (generally, higher than a measured 10-15% increase in speed would be noticeable - just).

Checkout some reviews, if you see that the results indicate a 15-20% increase over your current HDD, it may be worth the upgrade - after all, the HDD is the bottleneck.

 

Thank you!!! I will look at some reviews.