Does it matter spindle speed on hard drive

[taxihacker]

Hello,
i have a sony vaio with capacity of 500gb with 5400rpm in my spec manual!! My question is i need a new hard drive i know i only can go to 500gb but can i go to 7200rpm spindle speed ???

 

[ko888]

What makes you think you're limited to 500 GB?

What's the exact model number of your Sony VAIO?

 

[amnotanoobie]

The question is if it would fit in your laptop. Some drives have higher heights than expected and wouldn't fit in some laptops.

Then there's the connector, if your laptop has the old mobile ATA connector or SATA connector.

 

[sminlal]

As far as I know the current generation of laptop hard drives that have capacities more than 500GB are thicker than the standard laptop drive bay. There may be some laptops with drive bays large enough to accommodate the 750 and 1TB laptop drives, but you'd need to double-check to be sure.

Electrically speaking a 7200 RPM drive should work - the only downside is that it will consume more power and therefore your battery won't last as long. But the thing to watch out for is heat - the faster drive will generate more heat and that could cause a problem if the cooling system in the laptop isn't up to the job.

 

[ko888]

What if the OP has a Sony VAIO J or L Series all-in-one touchscreen desktop PC?

 

[taxihacker]

As far as I know the current generation of laptop hard drives that have capacities more than 500GB are thicker than the standard laptop drive bay. There may be some laptops with drive bays large enough to accommodate the 750 and 1TB laptop drives, but you'd need to double-check to be sure.

Electrically speaking a 7200 RPM drive should work - the only downside is that it will consume more power and therefore your battery won't last as long. But the thing to watch out for is heat - the faster drive will generate more heat and that could cause a problem if the cooling system in the laptop isn't up to the job.

thanks man should i just stay with the 5400rpm i am not computer savvy i only download music and watch you tube would i notice difference between he 2????

 

[taxihacker]

What makes you think you're limited to 500 GB?

What's the exact model number of your Sony VAIO?

VPCS111FM

 

[ko888]

The 750 GB mobile hard drives that I've looked at have the same physical dimensions as their 500 GB counterpart.

1TB mobile hard drives are 3mm taller.

The average latency (i.e. the time between initiating a request for data and the beginning of the actual data transfer) is lower on 7200 RPM drives. It may only be noticeable if your hard drive usage pattern involves a lot of random read & writes. From your usage description you seem to be doing mostly sequential access where you're not going to notice any advantage from lower the average latency.