5400 rpm hard drive vs 7200 rpm in a netbook

[zoomy942]

No, as it will reduce your battery life. A netbook is meant to be portable and not used for things that require a great deal of performance. If you do need performance, then get a 14" laptop, as it will have decent performance, while still portable.

i halfway agree with you. I get 7 hours easily with my netbook, 7200rpm drive and ubuntu 10.04

[FuturePilot]

i halfway agree with you. I get 7 hours easily with my netbook, 7200rpm drive and ubuntu 10.04

What kind of battery does it have?

[conradin]

The 7200 rpm will be worth it. Total power will be dependent on drive type. I have the one in my laptop right now, 7200rpm, 0.7 amps. I have others that are 5400 rpm, at 1 amp. std voltage is 5v,
so, 5watts vs 3.5 watts.

a more notable concern would be buffer (cache) size. The buffer can help with some bottle neck issues. Try to find something with 32MB of buffer, avoid anything with less than 16MB.

[zoomy942]

What kind of battery does it have?

6cell.

[Duncan J Murray]

I've heard that 7200rpm drives are actually more efficient, as they spend less time accessing. Anyone got any (hard) data on this?

[FuturePilot]

Thanks for all your input. I decided to go with the 7200 rpm drive.

[Paqman]

That's really out of my price range ATM otherwise I would consider one.

You can get Eeepc's with SSDs pretty cheap, and the performance spanks a non-SSD netbook. I've got an Eeepc 901 and it rocks along.

You're stuck with a wimpy processor, putting a slow conventional hard drive in it is just giving yourself a double kicking IMO.

[steveneddy]

My personal opinion here is to use a 7200 RPM drive, even in a laptop.

There is a noticeable difference in performance between 5400 and 7200 RPM's.

[mikewhatever]

hasnt been a single problem at all. think of it this way - the hard drive is done loading data so fast that it never has a chance to heat up anyway.

I'd say, a faster rotation speed would generate more heat. As for your info, magnetic platters usually keep spinning even tough the data is done loading.

[infestor]

7200 rpm notebooks are significantly more expensive than the 5400s