7200 RPM Hard drives

Question

Hi,

I was very much surprise to see that 7200 RPM hard drives
disappeared as soon as Dell started making Core2 Duo laptops.

Is that because they produce more heat (consequences of battery recall) ?

Is that temporary (out of stock or something) ?

Thank you,
Oleg.

bacillus · Answer

I suspect that it's down to cost and profit margins as they probably get a relatively bigger discount with the slower 5400 rpm hdds plus the fact that the high capacity 5400 rpm drives have almost similiar performance in most real world things.

olegk · Answer

Are you saying that higher capacity 5400 have higher performance that lower capacity ones ? Why ?
Dell says that 7200 should be 15% faster.
And if anything, 7200 HDDs where way more expensive.

I need 7200rpm laptop for development to run the application server on it - my apps produce large log files,
which are getting wiped out when app server is restarted, thus creating a lot of fragmentation.
As on now, it takes almost 5 minutes for my Inspiron 6000 to boot (1.86MHz Pentium M, 80GB 5400 RPM HDD).
Well, I have Norton SystemWorks & Firewall installed which slows boot time.
So HDD is a bottleneck. I really want to get a faster one on my new Inspiron 1505 [with 2GHz Core2 Duo]!

B_Coppins · Answer

Hard drives have never really been a bottle neck, there are other things that they need to get working on before HD's.

you're getting a Core2Duo and the CPU FSB is 667 and the RAM is 553.... if you look carefully you'll see that, unless you've bought RAM from an alternate source.

Did you format and re-install the system when you got it?

If you didnt, that would be a good reason why it's slow. They put a lot of un-needed software on the systems before they ship thus slowing the computer down.

olegk · Answer

> Hard drives have never really been a bottle neck,
> there are other things that they need to get working on before HD's.
It is a slowest element in PC, especially if it's getting heavily fragmented.
It should drag performance down drastically...

>you're getting a Core2Duo and the CPU FSB is 667 and the RAM is 553....
>if you look carefully you'll see that, unless you've bought RAM from an alternate source.
I have noticed that. I think, they give a 667 option MHz for higher end option of the same laptop.
Does it really make sense to pay more for that ?

>Did you format and re-install the system when you got it?
Yes, I wiped it out [Xp Home] and installed XP Pro.
But I do neeed firewall and antivirus, so had to install that Norton package (or the like).
Can see that it takes a long time to execute after reboot.

B_Coppins · Answer

I've seen in other threads that they dont offer the option for 667 for RAM except for the XPS high end gaming notebooks.

Get a defrag application that automatically defrags the hard drive at night when you're not using it( if its on )

Like DisKeeper.

Also, how much RAM did you get with the system?

olegk · Answer

>I've seen in other threads that they dont offer the option for 667 for RAM
>except for the XPS high end gaming notebooks.
Hmm, it's not there today for 1505, however for 6400 (sm.biz) they offer option:
"1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm [add $65]"
Is Dual Channel really faster than a Single Channel DDR2, worse the add. cost ?

>Get a defrag application that automatically defrags the hard drive
>at night when you're not using it( if its on )
>Like DisKeeper.
It's normally off at night, and it takes something like 6-8 hours on 80GB hard disk.
Norton Utilities has scheduling option, I don't use it.
Normally I do defragmentation about once a month.
Trying to defragment it too much creates an opposite effect, so I don't do it often.

>Also, how much RAM did you get with the system?
1GB + some video RAM. That's a little too low, I do a lot of development on that laptop.

B_Coppins · Answer

I run Disk Keeper ( DisKeeper ) and on my 250gb drive it doesnt take anywhere near 6hours, more like 1 - 2hrs to defragment. It's also the most effective defragmentation utility I have found, the Windows defragmentation is sub-par. Message Edited by B_Coppins on 09-18-2006 01:45 PM

rickmktg · Answer

olegk wrote:
>I've seen in other threads that they dont offer the option for 667 for RAM
>except for the XPS high end gaming notebooks.
Hmm, it's not there today for 1505, however for 6400 (sm.biz) they offer option:
"1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm [add $65]"
Is Dual Channel really faster than a Single Channel DDR2, worse the add. cost ?

There is no such thing as dual channel memory. The difference is that single channel is one stick (or two mismatched sticks), dual is pairs of sticks. That's why it says 2 dimm. Roughly 10% better performance, up to 30% on a desktop.

rickmktg · Answer

olegk wrote:
Rick,

Let me understand your message:
>There is no such thing as dual channel memory.
>The difference is that single channel is one stick (or two mismatched sticks), dual is pairs of sticks. >That's why it says 2 dimm.
>Roughly 10% better performance, up to 30% on a desktop.

So you are saying that when you have both memory slots filled in with the sticks of the same type and capacity
[as opposed to having one of 2 not filled], you get a performance boost of 10-30% ? Yes.

Then why does Dell charge more for a single DIMM option:
- 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm [Included in Price]
- 1GB Shared Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 1 DIMM [add $110] ?

Why does Dell charge more for 1 stick of 1gb memory, leaving a slot open for expansion, versus two 512mb sticks which leaves no slots open? Because a 1gb stick costs more than two 512s.

olegk · Answer

Rick,

Let me understand your message:
>There is no such thing as dual channel memory.
>The difference is that single channel is one stick (or two mismatched sticks), dual is pairs of sticks. >That's why it says 2 dimm.
>Roughly 10% better performance, up to 30% on a desktop.

So you are saying that when you have both memory slots filled in with the sticks of the same type and capacity
[as opposed to having one of 2 not filled], you get a performance boost of 10-30% ?

Then why does Dell charge more for a single DIMM option:
- 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm [Included in Price]
- 1GB Shared Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 1 DIMM [add $110] ?

Please explain it in more details.

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7200 RPM Hard drives

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