Notebook drives instead of normal HDs

garywork

garywork

garywork

Associate
Joined
19 Oct 2002
Posts
529
Thinking of some sata notebook drives to save even more noise / vibration

can cope with speed drop its just for normal use and severe downloading

any comments ?

thanks
 
those drives = more money for slower drives.

wouldnt you be better off getting enclosures for your current drives? cools them down, and quietens the drives too.

have done this for all 4 raptors at home - works a treat :D
 
Theres an article on this, an old one, at THG. The usage of Laptop HDDs in a normal PC.

The newer Laptop HDDs, such as the 5400rpm/16Mb cache/SATA drives, are v.fast and the difference wouldnt be all that noticable in day to day operations.
 
They're OK and will be fine for a quiet HTPC boot drive, but they do hog if you plan to do heavy use. PS, editing and all that. I have a 60GB WD 2.5" drive PATA. About £60. I would buy 60GB or 80GB, not 100GB or 120GB. (cost per GB)

You'll also need a 2.5" to 3.5" adaptor if using 2.5"'s. Dunno about 2.5" SATA.
 
laptop sata - i've heard the same - which is good news

can live with a slight dip in performance its noise / vibration above everything else

i think the idea is a goer with a few laptop drives in a p150 with the rubber band
mountings - should be good

now all i need is some dosh . . .
 
A fast hard drive makes a world of difference to your PC - I went from a 7200rpm 8MB cache Western Digital Cavier SE to a 10000rpm 8MB cache 74GB Raptor and the whole PC felt a lot quicker and more responsive

I'd be wary about going for a slower hard drive - this really hurts the performance of your PC. My 3Ghz laptop had a 4200rpm drive and consequently it really struggled. The 5400rpm drives are better but not great - look at a desktop with a 5400rpm drive in, for example

You can get 7200rpm laptop drives and these are a fair bit quicker but very expensive. You can get a 74GB 10000rpm Raptor for the same amount as a 60GB 7200rpm laptop drive

If the noise really bothers you I'd look at getting one of the silent enclosures. I've got the Raptor and it's quiet on idle but noisy when seeking - personally this suits me as I like to know when the hard drive is being accessed!
 
BoomAM said:
My lappy has a 5400rpm drive and its just as responsive as my 7200rpm drives in my main PC.
Click to expand...

Of course it's not, that’s a silly thing to say!!
The 5.4k drive is spinning 1800RPM slower than the 7.2k so it's nay impossible for it too be ''just as responsive''! The same as my 7.2k Hitachi's and 10k Raptors are no where near as responsive as my 15k Atlas II's (3ms).
 
You can get 7200rpm laptop drives. They won't have as much cache as a desktop drive but they are not a lot slower than an average model.
 
Jeff Crawly said:
Of course it's not, that’s a silly thing to say!!
The 5.4k drive is spinning 1800RPM slower than the 7.2k so it's nay impossible for it too be ''just as responsive''! The same as my 7.2k Hitachi's and 10k Raptors are no where near as responsive as my 15k Atlas II's (3ms).
Click to expand...
If i needed a crash course in how HDDs work then i would have asked.
Incidently, i dont.
And resposiveness of the system isnt wholey dependant on the speed of the HDDs motors. Neither is transfer speed.
I use 3 SATA2 Hitachi HDDs in my main system. On average, my common apps open within 5 seconds.
My laptop, has a 5400rpm/16Mb/SATA drive in it. The same apps open within 5 seconds.
So, they are as responsive as one another. But thats not because the Laptop drive is unusually fast, or because the desktop drive is unusually slow. Its because past the initial boot and the first few mins of windows, most things are already cached into the main memory, and the more memory you have, the less the HDD becomes a factor past the initial boot/load.. The responsiveness of the 'system' becomes a moot point then. Because the GUI and surrounding data, is cached.
As i said. Dependant on how much memory the system has.

Responsiveness is a subjective thing that isnt in any way linked to the speed of the various components of the hardware. Some people might think my two systems are like lightening, where as others might think they are slow.
Proclaiming that resposiveness is slower based upon drive speed doesnt make you look Knowledgeable. It makes you look ignorent.
 
Last edited:
BoomAM said:
If i needed a crash course in how HDDs work then i would have asked.
Incidently, i dont.
Click to expand...

Well from your statement that a 5.4k hd is just as responsive as a 7.2k drive you clearly do!!!

Also the OS caching stuff to the RAM makes no difference to the responsiveness of the actual HD!! You seem to be forgetting that the 5.4k Hd will take significantly longer to cache these files to RAM compared to the 7.2k> Hd!!

When you work with 15k Hd's all the time you soon realise just how important spindle speed is for a nice and fast/responsive system..
 
Jeff Crawly said:
Well from your statement that a 5.4k hd is just as responsive as a 7.2k drive you clearly do!!!
Click to expand...
Yes i did say that.
Because drive speed isnt an indication of responsiveness.
It takes longer to boot the machine, but once booted, general resposiveness is very good.

Also the OS caching stuff to the RAM makes no difference to the responsiveness of the actual HD!! You seem to be forgetting that the 5.4k Hd will take significantly longer to cache these files to RAM compared to the 7.2k> Hd!!
Click to expand...
lol.
Beginners eh? ;)
You didnt say the responsiveness of the HDD. You just said responsiveness, which implys how 'snappy' the GUI is. And the drive speed isnt wholey an indication of drive responsiveness.
In which case, my points stand. The GUI would have already been cached by that point.

When you work with 15k Hd's all the time you soon realise just how important spindle speed is for a nice and fast/responsive system..
Click to expand...
Ah the good old 'when you use one' gambit. Not gonna work on me sonny boy.
I dont care how fast the HDD is, if there isnt memory to back it up its useless. The servers at work have several 15k drives in, but the GUI responsiveness is awful, due to lack of memory.
 
me again

also , i assume notbooks/laptops dont have much coolin gon their drives
so if put in a PC no or minimal cooling would be needed

i think i've talked myself into this as a good idea

remember its not for out and out performance its to be good enough
but less noise / vibration really

thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom