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I am looking at buying my first laptop, and am considering the Dell XPS 1530. I will be using it for general use and probably some gaming. It seems that you cannot select a 7200RPM hard drive on a lot of the pre-configured systems, which is annoying. Maybe it is possible to phone up and order it with one? Should I be getting a 7200RPM drive over a 5400RPM one? Is the speed increase a very big one?

You will notice a speed increase along with a heat increase and a battery consumption increase. My vote would be to go with the 5400rpm drive.

I would go with the 7200rpm one. I hate 5400 rpm hard drives...

torax wrote:

You will notice a speed increase along with a heat increase and a battery consumption increase. My vote would be to go with the 5400rpm drive.

I believe USAcomp2K3 will be quick to point out that the difference in battery life between a 5400 and 7200rpm laptop hard drive is something small like 2-4 minutes per hour. He really convinced me to go for speed and not worry about battery life. I used to run a 4200rpm laptop drive and wished I went with 5400rpm. Now that I'm using a 5400rpm drive, I wish I had gone with the 7200rpm unit. The jump in speed is noticeable.

Edit: My laptop is a Dell Latitude D520 that I take on the road with my all of the time.

Spyder22446688 wrote:

torax wrote:

You will notice a speed increase along with a heat increase and a battery consumption increase. My vote would be to go with the 5400rpm drive.

I believe USAcomp2K3 will be quick to point out that the difference in battery life between a 5400 and 7200rpm laptop hard drive is something small like 2-4 minutes per hour. He really convinced me to go for speed and not worry about battery life. I used to run a 4200rpm laptop drive and wished I went with 5400rpm. Now that I'm using a 5400rpm drive, I wish I had gone with the 7200rpm unit. The jump in speed is noticeable.

Edit: My laptop is a Dell Latitude D520 that I take on the road with my all of the time.

Heh. I was just going to post and say that the power difference (and almost directly: heat) is hardly a factor between the 2 different spindle hard drives.

BTW, also check out delloutlet.com and you can potentially get closer to the configuration that you want.

I recently purchased a Dell XPS 1530 and opted for a 7200 RPM over a 5400 one. I am usually plugged in though, so speed was a big factor for me, I only need a laptop because I work in a few fixed locations all with power outlets.

7200 rpm, hands down.

Byzantine1453 wrote:

I would go with the 7200rpm one. I hate 5400 rpm hard drives...

i cosign this statement.

If you're choosing between a 160gb 7200rpm drive and a 320gb 5400rpm drive, do you really think the latter will be much slower? Areal density counts for a lot, it allows drives like the 320gb WD and the 320gb Samsung Spinpoint to have transfer rates that are as good as the 200gb Hitachi 7k200 (which is the fastest laptop drive available).

If you aren't going to be strapped for capacity (a nice fileserver with a terabyte or two), the Hitachi 7k200 is the best drive to get. However, if you could use the extra 120gb, don't think it'll make your system crawl.

Random access counts for a lot too. Aerial density is great when your copying files around or other sequential transfers, but once you start multi-tasking and the disk starts to thrash, you'll want that extra spindle speed pretty quickly. 5400rpm is fine for my sister, but a power user will want the upgrade, and get an external HDD if you need more storage space.

Big 7200 RPM drive. You *will* notice the difference.

emorgoch wrote:

Random access counts for a lot too. Aerial density is great when your copying files around or other sequential transfers, but once you start multi-tasking and the disk starts to thrash, you'll want that extra spindle speed pretty quickly. 5400rpm is fine for my sister, but a power user will want the upgrade, and get an external HDD if you need more storage space.

Exactly. STR is a wash; seek-heavy loads make the 7K a winner (note the power numbers too). Many users won't care, and people who are carrying around a lot of data will obviously prefer the larger drive (make sure you have a sensible back-up solution and use it regularly, of course). But if you're doing anything that is going to be HD-intensive (and, especially, seek-intensive), the 7K drive is still higher-performing. And remember, if you're doing anything that spills over into the page file, everything becomes seek-intensive.

... at which point I would also suggest that you put 4GB of RAM into that laptop before deciding on the HDD speed. A Zen master once said... "the fastest hard disk is the one not used".

Very true. Unfortunately, the combination of 32bit limits and laptop DIMM slot constraints (as well as the driver crapshoot on the 64bit side) sometimes means that being able to avoid the pagefile amounts to the sound of one hand clapping.

I bought a Dell XPS M1210 8 months ago. I made three mistakes when I configured the order (4 mistakes if you consider Vista which was replaced with XP within a week!).
First off I should have purchased the 9 cell battery along with the standard 6 cell battery. I bought a 9 cell within a month after purchasing the M1210. It cost about $175 instead of about $50 if ordered at the time of the computers purchase. I find I use the 9 cell most of the time.
I added 4GB of ram after the fact which is good because it cost me about $80 from NCIX instead of about $400 from Dell -- the 4GB's gives you a smoother operating machine.
I replaced the M1210's 5400 rpm drive with a 7200 rpm Seagate 160GB drive. The difference is quite noticeable -- for instance the machine took 35 seconds to boot with the 5400 rpm drive & slightly less then 20 seconds to shut down. With the 7200 rpm drive start up is about 22 seconds & shut down is about 12 seconds.
But as far as gaming goes? Forget it.

Firestarter wrote:

If you're choosing between a 160gb 7200rpm drive and a 320gb 5400rpm drive, do you really think the latter will be much slower? Areal density counts for a lot, it allows drives like the 320gb WD and the 320gb Samsung Spinpoint to have transfer rates that are as good as the 200gb Hitachi 7k200 (which is the fastest laptop drive available).

That's what I was thinking, as I read on a few forums that a 250GB or 320GB 5400RPM drive would be about the same speed as a 160GB or 200GB 7200RPM one. But, as read here, random access times will be lower on the 7200RPM drives, so will that make the whole system feel a lot more snappy and responsive? If it's definitely noticable then I think getting a 7200RPM one would be a good choice.

jobodaho wrote:

I recently purchased a Dell XPS 1530 and opted for a 7200 RPM over a 5400 one. I am usually plugged in though, so speed was a big factor for me, I only need a laptop because I work in a few fixed locations all with power outlets.

I have been wanting to buy a laptop for a long time now, as you can see by this thread: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=53225. I am considering the Dell XPS 1530. What do you think of the machine?

Go for the speed, you will not be disappointed. You will also want to max the RAM as you will most likely be forced in to Vista

Hockster wrote:

jobodaho wrote:

I recently purchased a Dell XPS 1530 and opted for a 7200 RPM over a 5400 one. I am usually plugged in though, so speed was a big factor for me, I only need a laptop because I work in a few fixed locations all with power outlets.

I have been wanting to buy a laptop for a long time now, as you can see by this thread: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=53225. I am considering the Dell XPS 1530. What do you think of the machine?

The machine is really nice, and works perfectly for what I need it for (CAD, 3Ds Max, and a lot of Photoshop) when I have to work away from the house. My machine is: C2D 2.2, 4gb ram, 120 gb 7200 rpm HD, Geforce 8600gt, and what was one of the bigger selling points (and headaches) was the wsxga screen at 1680 x 1050. The reason I say it was a headache, and the reason I would suggest not getting one, is because there is quite a bit of controversy over the screens Dell is using and their quality. Generally they ship Samsung wsxga screens, and they are terrible (which is what I originally got), but they also have some LGs that are stunning (which is what I have now). I came across this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=206527

Which chronicles peoples struggles trying to get their bad Samsungs replaced with an LG. I got lucky and did it early enough before Dell basically stopped doing it. That being said, the other resolutions offered (wxga, wxga+) are regarded as perfectly fine. Outside of this issue I wholeheartedly recommend the m1530.

I'd always go for the ~100gb 7200rpm drive on a laptop over a larger 5400rpm. You really shouldn't need more than 100gb in a laptop at this point unless its your only PC. I'm running on an 80gb drive and its more than fine and I do the majority of my work on my laptop as theres no 64-bit Nortel Contivity client for me to VPN into work with on my Vista Ultimate 64bit machine.

Also it is worth pointing out for all the suggestions about upping the ram that generally better to purchase the laptop with the minimum amount of RAM and then buying it separate from your favorite online vendor. For example, when I was looking for a laptop some places were trying to charge upwards of $300-400 just to go from 1 gb to 4 gb of ram. Or you could go to Newegg and do the same for around $70.

Having upgraded from a 5400 rpm to a 7200 rpm drive in my Toshiba A130 just last week I have to say that the difference is definitely noticeable.

I'd say it had the same effect on overall system responsiveness as moderate upgrade in processor speed. I leave my laptop plugged in nearly 100% of the time so I can't comment on increased battery drain but if you do the same I'd wholeheartedly recommend a 7200 rpm drive.

jobodaho wrote:

Also it is worth pointing out for all the suggestions about upping the ram that generally better to purchase the laptop with the minimum amount of RAM and then buying it separate from your favorite online vendor. For example, when I was looking for a laptop some places were trying to charge upwards of $300-400 just to go from 1 gb to 4 gb of ram. Or you could go to Newegg and do the same for around $70.

I'll second this. It was actually cheaper for me to throw away the 1GB that came with my laptop and replace it with a 2GB kit from newegg than to buy the extra 1GB -> 2GB upgrade from HP.

I went with a 200gb 7200rpm drive in my M1210 last summer based on my experience of upgrading 4 laptops for others. They had either run out of space or had failing drives. I replaced all with 7200rpm drives of various sizes (80gb to 160gb) and manufacturers. In 2 instances I did a fresh install of Windows, but in the other two I copied an image of the drive over. All were noticeably faster than the 5400 or 4200rpm drives they replaced.

I have a macbook, and i upgraded to a 7K200. All I can say is that its a SUBSTANTIAL improvement, JUST like it was when i upgrdaded from 5400 to 7200 back in the 3.5" days.
Sure the newer 5400 high capacity drives with their good areal density can match transfer speed but there is simply no replacement for spindle speed. this holds true with 10k or 15 desktop drives and holds true with 7200 laptop drives.

what you need to remember with a laptop is your usage pattern. You only have a single hard drive so ANY time that you need to read/write its t that one drive. so unless you're doing ONE thing thats doing a big read then you're trying to read / write all over the drive or to multiple spots at the same time. Either way your drive is going to need to seek to get to the data and thats where spindle speed helps out a lot.

the only TRUE drawback to 7200rpm drives (power really isnt one at all, you probably wont notice the difference, i mean you battery being 2 months older is probably the equivalent drop in runtime) is less storage space. But if you have a desktop then you probably dont NEED a ton of storage on your laptop. I have 200gb and I keep about 70GB of music and a bunch of appz (to be installed, aka installers) and a bunch of installed programs and a bunch of torrents and im fine. im sure i'd LIKE to have 200gv of music on a 320gb drive but i dont NEED it.

unless you just HAVE to have the storage go 7200rpm and enjoy the performance

EDIT: oh yeah i have 2gb of ram, which seems to prevent ALL swapping on Mac OS, at least with the apps that I run (even with parallels or vmware)...even in this situaiton 7200rpm is significantly faster feeling

I've noticed the same performance boost as Floodo. Upgraded for a Hitachi 80GB 5400rpm to Hitachi 200GB 7200rpm and the performance difference was quite substantial.

Battery life is a tad shorter (by about 10 minutes). The 7200rpm is a little bit louder, but not noticeable (wife couldn't tell the difference). If you are looking for performance over energy savings, I too would strongly recommend this upgrade!

My laptop has a 5400 rpm drive I tried to copy a 2mb application onto my usb and it took 2 and a half hours

I have a Mac Mini that I'd like to upgrade to a 7200RPM drive but I'm concerned about heat. Anyone else done the same? The drive I am looking at getting is this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145180

I've looked at the specs on the drive that came with the Mini (an 80GB Hitachi SATA drive). They both have the same environmental requirements. Right now I'm doing a Time Machine backup and my iStat Widget shows the drive's temp is 126F. Peak ambient for the drive is 55C (131F). I don't think the drive is always that warm.

Taddeusz wrote:

I have a Mac Mini that I'd like to upgrade to a 7200RPM drive but I'm concerned about heat. Anyone else done the same? The drive I am looking at getting is this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145180

I've looked at the specs on the drive that came with the Mini (an 80GB Hitachi SATA drive). They both have the same environmental requirements. Right now I'm doing a Time Machine backup and my iStat Widget shows the drive's temp is 126F. Peak ambient for the drive is 55C (131F). I don't think the drive is always that warm.

The environmental requirements are just what the drive can endure, not what it produces. I thought the mini came with a 4200rpm drive? Or did they bump that later? Is the drive in your mini a 5K100? The older 5K drives actually used more active power than the modern 7200s, though they were better at idle, as this comparison shows (thats the P-ATA version, but the interface doesn't matter). StorageReview did a review of the 7K200 last year comparing it to several of the other 2.5" drives available at the time (there's a power chart towards the end of the review). It's a good choice.

Replacing the drive in a Mini is a very common upgrade; I'm sure there are plenty of reports on the web of what works and what doesn't.

The existing 80GB drive is a SATA 5K160. I think I'll go ahead and get the drive. According to prior comments about a MacBook it looks like it would be a worthwhile purchase to speed things up a bit. Since I've already upgraded the RAM the hard drive is the only thing left to do.

Thank you all for your input on the matter. I will try to get either a 160GB or 200GB 7200RPM drive for the laptop, although when configuring it on the Dell website I only seem to be able to select a 250GB or 320GB 5400RPM drive. I will try phoning them up, though I guess I will end up paying more money if I do get the faster drive.