7200 rpm v. 5400 rpm hard drives

[NSchandler]

I remember reading a while ago in this forum that some people were saying that a faster hard drive could help improve performance when running pokertracker. How much of a difference is this going to make? Will it be a considerable jump in performance?

Let me put it this way - I'm buying a laptop, and I'm either going to upgrade from 512 MB to 1 Gig of RAM, or upgrade my hard drive from 5400 rpm to 7200 rpm. Which would help performance more?

Thanks for your help.

[YTV]

Upgrade to the faster harddrive now. You can always upgrade RAM later for much cheaper than you can when you actually buy the computer, not to mention upgrading RAM later is 2,019 easier than upgrading a harddrive later.

[AEKDBet]

yeah its close, but HDrive. why not go crazy and get both?

[krimson]

Way easier to upgrade ram later on. I say get both though, both upgrades are worth the $.

[JosephAnthony]

Speaking of this, is it worth it to spend the extra $ for 10k rpm as opposed to 7200 rpm?

[krimson]

[ QUOTE ]
Speaking of this, is it worth it to spend the extra $ for 10k rpm as opposed to 7200 rpm?

[/ QUOTE ]
I think the price jump from 7200->10k is quite a bit bigger than the 5400->7200 jump. Therefore it really depends on what your need for the drive is. I think 10k RPM drives are good for your OS install and running a pokertracker database personally. With those exceptions I'd rather put the money into a bigger drive than a 10k over 7200.

[YTV]

[ QUOTE ]
Speaking of this, is it worth it to spend the extra $ for 10k rpm as opposed to 7200 rpm?

[/ QUOTE ]

10k rpm HD's not avaialable for laptops (yet) and probably for awhile. Ive been waiting for the 74gb Raptors to go on sale for a couple months, as soon as they hit $120 after rebate im going to scoop up 3 of them.

[Nomad84]

[ QUOTE ]
Ive been waiting for the 74gb Raptors to go on sale for a couple months, as soon as they hit $120 after rebate im going to scoop up 3 of them.

[/ QUOTE ]

I ordered mine about 3 weeks ago from Newegg. It was $161-$10 instant (with promo code)-$20 MIR=$131. On top of that, you get a free subscription to some computer mag, but apparently they are required by law to offer you a rebate in the amount of the subscription cost if you don't want the mag, so I get another $20 rebate for that. Overall, that comes out to $111 if I had just ordered the Raptor. I assume you get the $20 for the mag if you just get the Raptor, but maybe there was a certain amount that I had to spend to get that. I ordered parts for an entire computer, so I can't say for sure. It's worth looking into though. Unfortunately, I don't think you will be able to get 3 of them this way unless you're placing 3 orders in 3 different names.

[ QUOTE ]
Speaking of this, is it worth it to spend the extra $ for 10k rpm as opposed to 7200 rpm?

[/ QUOTE ]

The only 10K SATA hard drives I know of have much more limited capacity than the 7200rpm drives. If you get a 7200rpm drive with the 8MB cache and native command queing, NCQ (I think I got that accronym right) you'll do fine. 10K rpm generates A LOT of heat. SCSI drives go up to 15K, but you pay a very high price for that and usually need additional hardware like a SCSI board.

Newegg has a one-day sale on 10k 74GB SATA raptors today. $120-130 after MIRs I think.