ze5170: would 7200rpm drive be noticeable faster?

[mscir]

I have an old ZE5170 that runs great. I bumped up the RAM from 512kb to
1MB - the max it can handle - and it's now fast enough to work well with
the latest FF and Chrome browsers. I don't need a lot of power, it's
used for email, web browsing, writing PHP and Visual Basic, so it's fast
enough for everything I do. It still has the original hard drive
(5400rpm 40GB ATA 100 IDE), and I was wondering if buying a 7200rpm
drive would result in any noticeable speed improvement?

 

[mike]

I have an old ZE5170 that runs great. I bumped up the RAM from 512kb to
1MB - the max it can handle - and it's now fast enough to work well with
the latest FF and Chrome browsers. I don't need a lot of power, it's
used for email, web browsing, writing PHP and Visual Basic, so it's fast
enough for everything I do. It still has the original hard drive
(5400rpm 40GB ATA 100 IDE), and I was wondering if buying a 7200rpm
drive would result in any noticeable speed improvement?

I had to send my 7200rpm drive in for warranty replacement.
Meantime, I used a 5400. The "feel" was noticeably slower.
But, once you get booted and the browser is running, you have
enough memory that the speed of the drive shouldn't impact
your browsing.

Your statement, "it's fast enough for everything I do"
suggests that you'd be spending money for nothing...well,
maybe shorter battery life.

 

[mscir]

I had to send my 7200rpm drive in for warranty replacement.
Meantime, I used a 5400. The "feel" was noticeably slower.
But, once you get booted and the browser is running, you have
enough memory that the speed of the drive shouldn't impact
your browsing.

Your statement, "it's fast enough for everything I do"
suggests that you'd be spending money for nothing...well,
maybe shorter battery life.

Hi Mike

Sorry I didn't give a more complete description above, I dual boot
Ubuntu/XP and I could do with a bit more hard drive space, so I'm
looking at which drives to buy. Thanks for your answer, that settled it
for me, 7200 is the way to go.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[GT]

Hi Mike

Sorry I didn't give a more complete description above, I dual boot
Ubuntu/XP and I could do with a bit more hard drive space, so I'm looking
at which drives to buy. Thanks for your answer, that settled it for me,
7200 is the way to go.

Hope I'm not too late - but watch out if you're replacing a 5400 laptop
drive with a 7200 - the 7200s get hotter and some laptop drive enclosures
don't have ventilation or good air movement. Might be worth doing some deep
googling for your particular laptop before upgrading.

I have just upgraded my Dell 6400 laptop in exactly the same way - primary
goal was more space (100 up to 500GB) and it does get warmer. Its also more
audible.

Just food for thought for you!

 

[Mike S]

Hope I'm not too late - but watch out if you're replacing a 5400 laptop
drive with a 7200 - the 7200s get hotter and some laptop drive enclosures
don't have ventilation or good air movement. Might be worth doing some deep
googling for your particular laptop before upgrading.

I have just upgraded my Dell 6400 laptop in exactly the same way - primary
goal was more space (100 up to 500GB) and it does get warmer. Its also more
audible.

Just food for thought for you!

GT,
I got the new 7200rpm drive and was very surprised to see that the old
drive is 4200rpm! I can't imagine why they would put that into a 2GHz
machine! I've run both XP and Ubuntu for many hours each with no
problems, so the heat may not be that big of a problem.
Thanks,
Mike