Replies to post #40558 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[CombJelly]

"Are there many portables/dtrs that run 7200 rpm disks?"

There are some. Three factors. The difference between a 4200 and a 7200 rpm 2.5" hard drive at the same capacity can be $100 or more. Another is the capacity of 7200 rpm is limited when compared to 4200 rpm drives, 4200 drives go to 100 gig. while only lately has 7200 gotten as far as 80 gig. And last, but not least, the power consumption is higher.

As a result, 7200 rpm drives tend to go into DTR where cost isn't a factor. For me, weight wasn't a big factor, but cost and battery life was. So I bought a pretty stripped down model, did spring for 440ToGo, 802.11g, A64 3000+ and the 12 cell battery, and added an additional 256 meg. of RAM and a 40 gig., 5400 rpm drive later. I then put the 30 gig. drive that came with the notebook and put it in an eternal USB case. While I went over my budget of $1000 by $35, I got a 30 gig. portable drive...

[sgolds]

Duke, I recently upgraded the disk in my wife's eMachine to a 7200 and put the old drive in an external USB enclosure as a supplemental drive. It was real easy. If you purchase the machine new it is even easier because you can use the installation CD that comes with the laptop to duplicate the factory install. (On an older machine there is that need to account for the installed apps...).

She runs a lot of Adobe product and this effectively doubled the speed of those apps (which get disk bound).