OT computer HD question

[bad coffee]

I'm looking at upgrading my laptop drive.

Right now I have a 60 gig 7200rpm drive with an 8meg cache.

Seagate finally has a 100 gig 7200. ($330)

But I also found a Toshiba 100 gig 5400 with a 16 meg cache. ($160)

If I go with the slower drive, I can afford to up my ram from 1 gig to 1.5

Which would be better? Going with a faster hard drive, or the slower drive and more ram. I use the computer for gaming and recording. (and email)

Thanks
B

 

[inkblue]

DEFINITELY more RAM !!

What good is a bigger drive if your app requires more RAM? besides, HD speeds are not often a consideration in gaming or any other application... of course, this takes into consideration that you have a newer gen PC.

Beef up your RAM and you will never regret it. I have 5 external drives hooked up to my Dual 2.7 PowerMac making a total of 1.75TB with 3.5GB of RAM.

 

[Josh]

More ram is always better to speed things up, but it is a laptop, so maybe it is already just at front bus speed. What kind of computer is it?

How many gigs do you have on your drive now?

 

[ctxmonitor]

More memory definitely improves performance.. Go with the 1 gig and hd.

 

[bad coffee]

The important Specs:
AMD 3200+ (1.8 gig supposedly)
1 gig kingston ram (2 gig limit)
128mb ATI 9700 pro vid card (mobility)
60 gig 7200 hitachi drive
dvd supermulti drive
1394, usb 2.0
and It's a RED Ferrari

My current drive will be going into an external firewire/usb enclosure. My current external (80 gig 4200rpm with 60+ gigs of music) will become my backup/archive.
I want to have my music on my computer, and I want to have a partition for linux. I'm probably going to instal mepis or gentoo. I need to learn a programing language that I can actually use. Why not screw micky$oft in the meantime So if I go with the 120 gig I have 20 gig windows, 20 gig linux, and 80 for music.

So what should I go with?

B

 

[bad coffee]

(it matches my red stapler)

 

[spykes]

gentoo is a great distro, since im no longer playing games im thinking about going gentoo again, i think the 5400 is fine, i do see a diffrence in transfer speed, but not a whole lot, i keep 80 GBs as my external USB backup and it's a 5400, not to bad at all, IBM hitachi drives are the best to me, but toshiba is fine, memory my PC is up to 3GB lol

 

[inkblue]

Hmmm... i always found it difficult to play games on a laptop. It's generally slow unless you get the top-of-the line alienwarez

 

[Josh]

Brett,

Did you already buy that laptop?

-Josh

 

[herman]

If you want a gaming laptop, the one I can definitely recommend is the dell xps gen 2 loaded to the max. Retail is high but dell always has the 40% off promotions on their site. At the moment it kicks alienwares a$$. Its just a damn brick!!

As far as improving the quality and performance of a laptop the rule is usually to go with the max amount of ram you can afford.

The question of the hard drive is always do you access the drive alot? EG. You edit video, music etc. Then a higher speed drive is good. Otherwise the slower one is fine and you will not notice the difference.

As far has more ram or faster hdd, its no contest always ram first.

 

[fas917]

Bad coffee, both HD are fine for upgrade although Seagate is much better drive and reliable. Since you will use it as external device, rpm will not play any major role in speed. External HD speed depends on the USB/fire wire BUS speed. IMO 5400rpm is way too fast for any USB/fire wire. I would go with Seagate for reliability personally. As for your RAM, I do not recommend upgrading to 1.5 gig. If you want to upgrade, upgrade to 2gig (2x1 gig chips DDR rams) Beside you have more than enough rams to run all your applications. If your computer slows down, it will be because of your CPU speed. You have to keep in mind that all most all laptop comes with stepping cpu ie cpu speed depends on your power connections. If you are on battery cpu will run slower to conserve battery and on dc it will run at full power. So adding more memory will not help a slow cpu to work faster.

Hmmm for linux, I use solaris and like free-BSD for it stability and reliability, but for driver compatibility I think red hat distro free packs most of the stuff. Just my 2 cents?

I have a linux setup on my home pc and use VMware to install windowzz. So now I don?t have to reboot the machine everytime I want to use windows or play games, I just lunch VMware and I am there.

 

[bad coffee]

Josh, Yeah. I've had this for about a year. It came with 1/2 gig and the 4200 drive. since I haul it around a lot, I chose to go with lighter and longer battery life (7 pounds and 2+hours of run time) rather than get a p4 desktop replacement. I paid about $2k for it and the other day I saw one at J&R for $1200

And gaming on this is okay. I can't set the graphics too high, but I am playing BF2 without a problem. I have a cyber snipa keyoard that is just the main gaming keys so I don't keep hitting the windows keys.

B

 

[bad coffee]

Fas, The new drive is going into my laptop, and my current 7200 will become my firewire recording drive. And thanks for the tip on th VMware. I'll check it out today.

B

 

[fas917]

Than go with the seagate. I downloaded vmware for free and use linux as the host OS and windows as guest.

 

[Barnacle_Blenny]

This is the custom made Ferrari's we sell

CPU
。AMD AthlonTM 64 FX-53 (89W) 2.40GHz
　 (1 MB L2 cache, socket 939)
。AMD AthlonTM 64 FX-55 (104W) 2.60GHz
　 (1 MB L2 cache, socket 939)
。AMD AthlonTM 64 (85.3W) 3000+/3200+/3400+/3500+/3700+/3800+/4000+
　 (1.80~2.40GHz, 512KB / 1 MB L2 cache, socket 939)
Core Logic 。VIA K8T890+VT8237R
Display 。17.1" WXGA (1440x900) TFT / 17.1" WSXGA+ (1680x1050) / 17.1" WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT
Memory 。Two 64-bit wide DDR data channels
。Two 200-pin SODIMM sockets, supporting DDR 400
。Expandable Memory up to 2GB, based on 256/512/1024MB SODIMM Module
Video Controller 。(Option) nVIDIA GeForceTM Go 6800 High performance graphic chip
。(Option) nVIDIA GeForceTM Go 6800 Ultra High performance graphic chip
。(Option) nVIDIA QuadroTM Fx Go 1400 High performance graphic chip
。256MB DDRIII Video RAM on board
。256-bit video memroy interface
。PCI-Express x16
。Fully DirectX? 9.0 support
。Modular Design
Storage 。One changeable Primary 2.5" HDD 9.5mm(H)
。Serial ATA HDD support
。RAID 0, RAID 1 HDD Fault-tolerance System under SATA HDD
。One changeable Primary Bay for 12.7mm(H) DVD-ROM / Combo / DVD-Dual Driver
。Supporting Master mode IDE ATA-100/133 (Ultra DMA)
。(Option) One external USB 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive
。(Option) One changeable Secondary 2.5" HDD 9.5mm(H)
。(Option) One changeable Secondary Bay for 12.7mm(H) DVD-ROM / Combo / DVD-Dual Driver
Keyboard 。Full size keyboard, with Numeric Pad, Multi-Language support
。Built-in Touchpad with scrolling function
Sound System 。AC'97 2.2 Compliant Interface
。3D stereo enhanced sound system
。Virtual 8-channel audio output
。Sound-Blaster PROTM compatible
。S/PDIF Digital output (5.1 CH)
。SRS (Sound Retrieval System? ) / WOW 3D sound technology
。1x Built-in Microphone
。4x Built-in Speakers
。1x Built-in Sub woofer
。1x Built-in Audio DJ Console for music CD (MP3 format compatible)
I/O Ports 。4x USB 2.0 ports
。2x Mini IEEE1394a ports
。1x S-Video jack for TV output (HDTV support by transfer cable)
。1x Serial port
。1x Parallel port (LPT1), supporting ECP/EPP
。1x Infrared Transfer port
。1x DVI port
。1x PS/2 port
。1x Headphone jack
。1x Microphone jack
。1x S/PDIF output jack
。1x Line-in jack for Audio input
。1x RJ-45 port for LAN
。1x RJ-11 port for Modem
。1x DC-In jack
。1x CATV input jack (optional function with TV-Tuner module)
。1x S-Video jack for Video input (optional function with TV-Tuner module)
Card Reader 。Built-in 10-in-1 Card Reader (MS/MS Pro/SD/MMC/CF/SM/MicroDrive/MS DUO/Mini SD/RSMMC)
PCMCIA 。1x Type II PCMCIA socket
Communication 。Infrared Transfer : 115.2Kbps SIR/4Mbps FIR, IrDA 1.1 compliant
。10/100/1000BASE-T Fast Ethernet onboard
。Integrated V.90/56K Azalia Modem (V.92 compliant)
。(Option) 802.11a/b/g MiniPCI Wireless LAN Module
。(Option) BluetoothTM Class II V2.0 Module, combo with 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Module
。(Factory option) 1.3M-pixel Video Camera module
Power 。Full Range 220W AC adapter - AC input 100~240V, 47~63Hz, DC output 20V, 11A
。Changeable 12-cell Smart Li-Iion battery pack, 6600mAh
Security 。Kensington? Lock
Dimension 。397(W) x 298(D) x 49.5(H)mm, 15.6"(W) x 11.7"(D) x 1.9"(H)
。5.8Kg with 12 cells Lithium-lion battery
Options 。One changeable Second 2.5" HDD 9.5mm(H)
。One changeable Second Combo / DVD-Dual Driver 12.7mm(H)
。One external USB 1.44MB Floppy Disk Driver
。MiniPCI Hybrid TV Tuner (analog or digital)
。802.11a/b/g MiniPCI Wireless LAN Module
。BluetoothTM Class II V2.0 Module, combo with 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Module
。One external USB 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive
。(Factory option) 1.3M-pixel Video Camera module

 

[bad coffee]

This is the custom made Ferrari's we sell

Dimension 。397(W) x 298(D) x 49.5(H)mm, 15.6"(W) x 11.7"(D) x 1.9"(H)
5.8Kg with 12 cells Lithium-lion battery

5.8kg x 2.2 kg/lb= 12.75 pound laptop. I think I know the laptops you're talking about. and one was my first choice, until I read the weight. I really don't want to haul that around every day, along with my work tools. Call me lazy, but the pounds add up. Plus, what's the battery run time?

Also, what's the price tag?

and more importantly, are you a seagate or a hitachi dealer? What's your price on the above drives?

B

 

[pmui]

Sweet laptop

 

[jhale]

wow, we really are geeky here. :lol:

 

[Barnacle_Blenny]

yes I sell both brands. Give me a ring if yah want. Pm'd yah my number