Need an external HDD please advice....

Need an external HDD please advice....[REsolved]

Hi friends

I have a compaq presario CQ40-330 TU laptop with 160 GB 5400 rpm HDD with 2 GB of RAM. I am looking for an externel HDD so that i can store movies, photoes etc. Can somebody suggesty me what are the thing i should look for before buying something..... Is 7200 rpm is better than a 5400 rpm external drive??


Please give some advice

With regards
Gautam7

 

5400rpms good to save on battery
7200rpms good for faster reads/writes data access

I use WD external USB 2.0 when I need too. They're 2.5 factor. There are 3.5 factor are the same size of a desktop HDD.

 

the 5400 rpm drives are the 2.5 small externals, they don't require a power source(run off the usb), very convenient. This would be my recommendation for your laptop. The 7200rpm drives will not be any advantage since your laptop drive will be a slow 5400 rpm.
I paid 49.00 for my western digital 5400 external drive, works great for my laptop.

 

I would also recommend the WD usb drives in 2.5" form factor.

7200 rpm drives and 5400 rpm, take your pick. The USB bus is going to be the bottleneck here, not the drive. I have put both 5400 and 7200 in an external USB 2.0 enclosure, and my findings were there is no real difference. A WD external USB performs about the same as a Raptor 3.5" drive in a nice, expensive external enclosure.

The real question for me would be, do I ever plan on "possibly" using that external drive as an internal. That might make me spend and extra 10-20 for a 7200 rpm drive, but aside from that, a 5400 will do the job at about the same speeds.

Sul.

 

First of all sorry everyone been away from home couple of days hence could not reply in time.

Thanks everyone for confirming that the performance would be of same due to usb 2.0 interface, i thought that too..

@ Sully can i use 7200 rpm drive as an internal ?? I thought it may cause some problem regarding battery consumption, system heat, noise, vibration etc.

 

Providing you find a drive in your form factor that was 7200rpm, as long as the energy requirements are within specs, no reason you cannot use one. True, the might be noise/heat issues, but how much is anyones guess as each drive seems to be different with that area. Most likely battery life would be affected, but again, how much more draw does 2000 rpm create? 10 minutes less life? Or 40 minutes less. Hard to say.

My comment though was a generalization that when I think about buying something, I try to think further out. I don't use a laptop normally, so I was thinking more in line with desktop. If I were thinking laptop, and I usually were plugged into AC when using the external drive, then yes I would seek a 7200rpm 2.5" drive, and I would likely experiment in my laptop just to see how it performs and what the differences are. But that is just me. I only point out that maybe you should pause before purchasing, and consider a broader picture sometimes.

Sul.

 

I use a Western Digital 1 TB drive with a Thermaltake BlacX Hard Drive Dock!
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3516746&sku=T925-1219 You can put any 2.5 inch or 3.5 inch SATA Drive into it! It`s also good for cleaning other drives if there infected with a clean computer or get the files off of it!

TH

 

Thanks guys for your responses. This discussion gives me just the information i needed Just one last question will cache be an important factor if i go for an external HDD.

With regards
Gautam7

 

Not really the larger Drives like my 1TB is 32MB.

TH

 

Re: Need an external HDD please advice....[Resolved]

Ok Thanks guys for your time and advice it helped me to make a choice. I think i will go witha 7200 rpm internal HDD (may be WD scorpio series) and use the present 160 GB HDD as an external.


Again thank you all have a nice day

edit: I tried to put resolved in the tital by editing my 1st post but it didn't seem to work.....

Thanks again