Printable View
Question for all you folks out there.
I'm specing out new Toshiba laptops because the S2 we have been purchasing was discontinued. The upgrade is an S3 and one of the biggest differences is the HD. I got the S2's with a 60gb 7200rpm drive but the S3 does not offer 7200rpm what it does off is a 5400 sata drive.
My question is do you think a 5400rpm SATA drive will perform better than a 7200rpm IDE drive?
Just curious on your thoughts..
Thanks.
IIRC SATA has a 150Mbps datarate.. IDE has 100Mbps (or was it 133?)..
So the sustained datarate should be higher on SATA but the 7200rpm IDE disks should have faster access times.
I would agree that the access time would be faster on a 7200rpm drive but think the throughput on the sata will be better. I was just reading this on Tom's Hardware about the Toshiba 100gb drive. They gave it pretty good reviews and I like the drive capacity vs the 7200 drive.. http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20050606/index.html
It deepends what IDE adn SATA specification you are using
ATA2 or EIDE is 16.6MBytes/sec ranging all the way up to Ultra ATA 133 which as its name suggests is 133 MBytes/sec
SATA can either be 1.5MBps (1.5Ghz) 300MBps (3.0 Gbps) or even 600MBps (6.0 Gbps)
SATA II is often thought to be 300MBps but this is not always the case.
The extra data throughput of a SATA drive will certainly outweigh the loss of speed you will get.
IDE/ATA IMO will be phased out in favour of SATA within the next 5 - 10 years. The smaller cables that come with SATA drives make for better cooling aswell. (you can get round IDE cables but SATA ones are smaller)
I would go SATA in a heart beat. Better data throughput as nokia said, and think of it this way, the 7200 rpm's will only make the IDE drive hotter, and the extra data throughput will be better then a faster and hotter drive...
Better battery life from the 5400 as well?
If the 7200 drive will get hot as the Duck points out that energy has to come from somewhere.
Don't know if battery life is an issue for you.