4200 v. 7200 (again)

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richarddd · #1 Post by **richarddd** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 9:05 pm

At the moment I have both a 60gb 4200 (80gn) and a 60gb 7200 (7k60) and am trying to decide whether to keep the 7200.

The 7200 is faster in benchmarks (approx 50%). RAR'ing and unRAR'ing a large file is also much faster (also about 50% - I hadn't realized this was so disk intensive). The 7200 is a bit faster on boot (about 60 v. 70 secs).

Most of my use is office apps (word and excel), web browsing and email, with some amount of watching movies (for example, avi's). Hard to notice a difference in speed, for example, launching one of these program takes is about 2-3 secs on either drive.

They are both very quiet with acoustic management turned on. The 7200 is a bit warmer. If the fan is running, they're cool (I can't figure out why the fan turns on or off). If the fan isn't running, the keyboard is rather warm, with the 7200 more uncomfortable. Hitachi's ftool reports temperatures in the 100-120F range.

Both drives are running the same setup, including w2k and ntfs. 1.4ghz processor, 512mb ram.

I expected more of a difference. At the moment. I'm tempted to swallow zipzoomfly's restocking fee and return the 7200, but wonder if I'm missing something.

#2 Post by **K. Eng** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 10:03 pm

I would suggest selling the 7200RPM drive here if you feel you don't need it - you may recover more $ than if you had to pay the restocking fee.

I've gotten by fine on my low end 4200RPM drive, since I don't do anything that requires a lot of transfers. The heavy work goes to my desktop

Guest · #3 Post by **Guest** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 11:31 pm

I question the 7200 rpm HDs. People keep saying that they are faster and they are but only in when compared to a 4200rpm drive. The thing is most laptops are sold with a 4200 rpm drive. Go to the store or look online most of the Hds are 4200 rpm. The R series only have 4200 rpm drives. Meaning what are available to consumers are 4200 rpm drives. So there is no big deal. When people write reviews about computers they speed of the HD is never mentioned because obviously they are more important things. I personally hope to get the 60 7200 rpm HD only for future proofing. I am assuming at one point in time 4200 rpm drives used to be the fastes there were? AM I correct or has HD techology just start to increase? How long has this 60 gig 7200 rpm drive been available?

stgreek · #4 Post by **stgreek** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 1:46 am

see my reply on your other thread

richarddd · #5 Post by **richarddd** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 6:03 am

Stgreek, what apps are you running on your machine?

Your post is typical of the posts I read before buying the drive, yet I don't perceive such a big difference in most activities.

I have a new TP which is significantly faster than my old TP (1.4ghz v. 333mhz, 512mb v. 256mb, video card, etc.). Programs launch much faster, web pages are rendered much faster (despite no real change in ethernet speed), movie play is much smoother, etc.

The HDD does not seem to be serving as a major bottleneck for me. Maybe it's because of the apps I run. Maybe it's because the new machine is so much faster than the old that I don't notice the difference in HDD speed. Maybe something else.

I'd hate to return the 7200 and then think of some reason I should have kept it.

Any suggestions for further testing?

MichaelMeier · #6 Post by **MichaelMeier** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 7:56 am

monty cantsin · #7 Post by **monty cantsin** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 8:49 am

richarddd wrote:Hard to notice a difference in speed, for example, launching one of these program takes is about 2-3 secs on either drive.

This exactly coincides with my own experiences. But as nearly everbody is going mad about the 7200rpm drives, it's almost all in vain to try and put that into perspective.

The 80GN is (compared to its predecessors) quite fast because of its high areal density, and the 8MB cache (only on the 60 and 80GB models!) is also a very big plus.

So for ordinary office applications an 80GN with 8MB and 4200rpm doesn't make much of a difference to a 7k60, also equipped with 8MB cache, but spinning at 7200rpm.

The 7k60 can only show all its strengths when multiple tasks try to access the drive simultaneously or big chunks of data are loaded.

MichaelMeier · #8 Post by **MichaelMeier** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 9:34 am

devilsrejection · #9 Post by **devilsrejection** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 10:00 am

i have an x40 but i also have a 4200 rom drive, seriosly it all depends on what you use your laptop for.

aim, word, onenote, and firefox are literally the only apps i use on this thing. sometimes vb .net whne i need to debug of finish something really quick.

its all personal perference.

stgreek · #10 Post by **stgreek** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 10:10 am

richarddd wrote:Stgreek, what apps are you running on your machine?

The HDD does not seem to be serving as a major bottleneck for me. Maybe it's because of the apps I run. Maybe it's because the new machine is so much faster than the old that I don't notice the difference in HDD speed. Maybe something else.

Any suggestions for further testing?

That sounds like a good reason, since the change was quite dramatic. However, if you want to test yourself, benchmark both drives on your system with your apps - Load a clean windows/linux install on both and measure loading/task times of apps like ms office, photoshop, browsers, FPS game levels etc as well as boot times and file transfer times. Yes, it does depend on what you run. When updating my linux world tree (that is, 80000 files), the 7200 drive is around 80% faster than the 5400. If, however, all you do is start winamp and listen to mp3s, similar cache drives will make absolutely no difference.

You wrote yourself that RAR is 50% faster, but loading your browser isn't. If all you do is browse the net return the drive and spend your money on something else. If you use file-intensive tasks, keep the 7200. It is your money after all, not mine

Stavros

Guest · #11 Post by **Guest** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 11:05 pm

Also the 7200 rpm drive is future proofing also right? For me when I buy something like this I only want to upgrade the RAM if I have too. I don't want to worry about add ons.

hiengu · #12 Post by **hiengu** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 12:51 pm

How do you turn acoustic management on/off? I'd like to be able to toggle this if possible.

I have a T41 with a 7200 rpm drive.

mattfromomaha · #13 Post by **mattfromomaha** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 1:03 pm

What is the difference in battery life between them? I would think the 7200 would kill the battery a little faster.

monty cantsin · #14 Post by **monty cantsin** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 1:45 pm

hiengu wrote:How do you turn acoustic management on/off? I'd like to be able to toggle this if possible.

I have a T41 with a 7200 rpm drive.

You could either try the small and handy WinAAM, which has been developed by the German IT magazine c't and runs under Windows...

ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/winaam18.zip

...or the official HitachiGST "Feature Tool" boot-floppy:

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/d ... eatureTool

esquire · #15 Post by **esquire** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 1:48 pm

I have a 60gig 7200 drive.....its quiet and stuff loads FAST.

Logi7 · #16 Post by **Logi7** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 6:31 am

i have the 7200
and have nothing to complain about
i havent even noticed that im using a laptop because it just as fast as my desktop

hiengu · #17 Post by **hiengu** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 3:47 pm

Yeah, my 7200 rpm is fast too. I compared it to a Dell Inspiron 8600 ... mine seems snappier than a 4200 rpm. I compile code so I went for a faster hard drive.

4200 v. 7200 (again)

4200 v. 7200 (again)

I question the 7200 rpm drives

Re: I question the 7200 rpm drives

Re: 4200 v. 7200 (again)

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