How much would my laptop benefit from replacing my 5400 rpm hard drive with a 7200 rpm?

Question

My new laptop, Acer Core i5 460m @ 2.53 ghz, 4 GB DDR3, 500 GB 5400rpm HDD, ATI Radeon 5650 1 GB DDR3 GPU for $650

Is pretty quick but seems sluggish at times. Would there be a noticeable difference in, say, throwing in a 500 GB 7200 rpm Western Digital Scorpio Black hard drive for about $70?

Answer 1

It depends on what you're doing when it feels sluggish.



If boot up and launching programs are sluggish, then the hard drive upgrade would help. That might cut load times by 25%, so it's not going to perform miracles.



If the sluggishness is anywhere else, the hard disk isn't to blame. The rest of the specs on that laptop are pretty good, so make sure you're not blaming your hardware for a slow network connection.

Answer 2

The speed of a hard drive is expressed in terms of RPM or Revolutions per minute. Typically, a hard disk uses rotating platters (disks). Each platter has a smooth magnetic surface on which digital data is stored. Information is written to the disk by applying a magnetic field from a read-write head that flies very close over the magnetic surface. The magnetic medium (film) on the disk surface changes its magnetization in microscopic spots (bits) due to the head's write field. The information can be read back by a magnetoresistive (MR) read sensor which is part of the same head structure on the trailing end of the flying slider. The read sensor detects the magnetic flux eminating from the bit transitions passing underneath it through a small change of the MR sensor's electric resistance. A typical hard disk drive design consists of a spindle on which the platters spin at a constant RPM. Moving along and between the platters on a common arm are read-write heads, with one head for each platter surface. The actuator arm moves the heads on an arc (roughly radially) across the platters as they spin, allowing each head to access almost the entire surface of the platter. So basically a higher RPM means that faster the rotation of the magnetic disk and therfore lesser time taken for the hard disk to write data in inself. Similarly, the hard disk with higher RPM will take lesser time to access the data in inself than a hard disk with lower RPM. For basic computing needs a hard disk with 5200 RPM will work just fine. However, if one wants to store music files or play games, then it would be better to have a 7200 RPM (trust me on would definitely feel a difference in speed of the overall system). Hope you find this information useful.

Answer 3

I can't see it making a great deal of difference.

With 4GB RAM you won't be using your swap file much.

If it is only slow at loading apps and files from the disk then maybe.



Also - a 7200RPM disk will use more battery power than a 5400rpm one.



What antivirus are you using? That's the first thing I'd check if a new PC is running slow.

Some AVs really make a PC drag. McAfee and Norton spring to mind. Also have seen some amazing delays caused by the webscanner in AVG 2011.



Maybe try NOD32 from http://www.eset.com and see if that makes any difference. (30 day free trial on site)

Answer 4

That's a pretty snappy PC specs wise.



You'll benefit in bootup and load times for programs if you upgrade your HDD, but otherwise you won't see an improvement. If that's not what's hanging you up, look elsewhere.



Also, consider getting an SSD and an external hard drive. You can get a 40GB SSD for $95 now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167030&cm_re=40GB_intel_SSD-_-20-167-030-_-Product

SSDs load data several times faster than hard drives and you'll see a significant improvement in bootup and load times, but they're expensive and don't offer much storage. You can compensate for the latter by keeping all your files on an external hard drive.

Answer 5

correct answer is:

It will benefit quite lot because:

+ decrease of average access time (lower better)

+ increase of Maximut&Average Data Transfer Rate

+ Inside transfer speed will boost up --> copy some directories on the same partition will take much less

+ boot up time will be improved



for you general response time will decrease. Please notice, that mostly when you are waiting for your PC to do something it's due to Disk speed as the bottle neck of your PC.



http://sasmos.sk

Answer 6

1800 rpm's will make a difference as well as removing all the preinstalled stuff you don't need that comes with new computers. Startup items too.

Answer 7

there would be a bit of a difference seeing as the 7200 rpm drive would be faster than the 5400