The title pretty much says it all…my wife and I are planning on expanding our family soon, and this means sacrificing the office and turning it into a kid’s room. Instead of putting the computer in one of the other rooms, like a bedrrom, we’re thinking of getting a laptop that is at least as powerful as our current desktop computer (Athlon 900MHz, 384MB of RAM, 40GB of HD).
If I understand thigns correctly (I’m in IT, I build my own computers and repair them for others, so I’m pretty up on most stuff), one of the things that makes notebooks noticeably slower than desktops is that the HD often spins at 4200 or 5400RPM as opposed to a regular desktop’s 7200 RPM.
I can see that there are options (Dell, HP, alienware if I want to get nuts) to have 7200RPM laptop drives installed standard with the notebook I buy. The question is, how much is my wife going to complain about the noise? Are they really noisy?
Do you have one in your Dell, HP, Compaq, or other? Tell me about it.
I put my ear next to my Dell laptop for you. I don’t/haven’t heard much noise from the harddrive. If I put my ear six inches away from my laptop all I can hear is the low hum from the fans. So, in my opinion, the hard drive is pretty quiet. I have a Toshiba 7200 RPM 80 GB 8MB buffer (I have two, one for work and one for games, both are great). Also, the harddrive spins pretty smooth. I can barely feel it if I put my hand on the external surface of the drive carrier.
I had a Compaq laptop a few years ago. I replaced 30 GB 4200 RPM with a 40GB 7200 RPM and the performance gain was incredible.
The seek time isn’t near the 8.5 or less we see in desktop harddrives but 10ms is good enough to play the best games.
I have one of the new PowerBooks with the upgraded 100GB 7200RPM drive. Very fast, very quiet.
I’m still trying to gauge how the faster hard drive is affecting battery life. It comes with a 5.5 hour battery. With the 7200RPM drive, an external optical mouse attached, and with airport wireless continuously on, I seem to get almost 4 hours…but I need to run some more consistent tests. Still, not too shabby.