100GB laptop internal drive, now @ 7200 RPM

[stoid]

So I've been shopping around for a bigger/faster internal drive for my POwerBOok, and I just noticed today that Other World Computing is shipping 100GB 7200RPM Hitachi HDs. Check it out here. I've never seen 7200 RPM on drives larger than 60GB. Their damn expensive, but oh so tempting!

 

[widgetguy]

yea i seen a few my self on ebay, but the thing about them is that apple uses the 5400 cause it don't consume as much poweer giving the user more battery life so so if you don't care a about ya battery on lasting 1.5/ 2 hours get a 7200 rpm

 

[stoid]

yea i seen a few my self on ebay, but the thing about them is that apple uses the 5400 cause it don't consume as much poweer giving the user more battery life so so if you don't care a about ya battery on lasting 1.5/ 2 hours get a 7200 rpm

I've read somewhere that the faster drives require less reading time, and therefore are spun down more, and so the hit on battery life is almost negligible.

 

[sw1tcher]

But what about the heat a 7200 rpm drive would create?

 

[Heb1228]

tomshardware.com has done extensive testing and shown that higher RPM drives do NOT use more power. The heat may be a slight problem, but since upgrading to a 5400 RPM drive on mine, i don't notice the fans running more than they did before. I imagine the heat difference is also negligible.

I'd be interested to see what the data transfer speeds on that 7200 rpm drive show up as. The one i just put in mine is a 120GB seagate at 5400 rpms and was the fastest laptop drive at the time of the benchmarking, even over a few of the smaller capacity 7200 rpm drive.s

 

[homerjward]

benchmarks have shown that the hit in battery life from a 7200rpm drive is negligible at worst and actually adds life at best due to better power management on higher drives and less read time. i'd say go for it if you're running out of space and/or have the need for speed.