Does more Space increase Performance?

[Andreisuba45]

I was wondering if I upgrade from 250gigabites harddrive will I get better performance? Do harddrives for laptops come in a larger size then 250gig?

 

[SimonDavies]

Performance for a disk generally rely on the spin speed of the disk rather than the capacity, if you're running a 5400rpm drive and can fit a 7200rpm drive into the machine (ie the machine is capable of reading said drive) you will notice an improvement on performance.

Another thing that impacts performance is fragmentation, if you regularly open and close files and don't defrag your drive you will slowly impact the performance of the drive until you do defrag it.

Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[ettienne]

Not enough free drive space will hamper performance, a larger drive will not necessarily improve performance.
There are larger laptop drives than 250GB, if your laptop can run it then look for a higher RPM SATA drive as Simon suggested.

 

[ettienne]

You can try adding a flash drive (USB or SD card if your laptop takes it) and then use ReadyBoost in Vista, this might give you a bit more performance. Vista will use the flash drive as additional RAM.

 

[linney]

Perhaps the size of any hard drive is not as important as how much free space you have left on a hard drive. Disk maintenance programs like Defrag require a certain amount of free space to perform an efficient defrag, in XP it use to be 15% of the hard drive, I assume it is similar in Vista?.

 

[ettienne]

Vista is the same, defrag needs space to move things around.

 

[Andreisuba45]

What's the best way to check wether I can upgrade my laptop? I have a DELL XPS M1530.

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T8300 @ 2.40GHz
Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
Gaming graphics 1791 MB Total available graphics memory
Primary hard disk 137GB Free (220GB Total)

System
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Manufacturer Dell Inc.
Model XPS M1530
Total amount of system memory 4.00 GB RAM
System type 32-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 2
64-bit capable Yes

Storage
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total size of hard disk(s) 230 GB
Disk partition (C 137 GB Free (220 GB Total)
Disk partition (D 6 GB Free (10 GB Total)
Media drive (E CD/DVD

Graphics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Display adapter type NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
Total available graphics memory 1791 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 256 MB
Dedicated system memory 0 MB
Shared system memory 1535 MB
Display adapter driver version 7.15.11.7431
Primary monitor resolution 1440x900
DirectX version DirectX 10

Network
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Network Adapter Marvell Yukon 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller
Network Adapter Microsoft Tun Miniport Adapter
Network Adapter Dell Wireless 1505 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-Card
Network Adapter Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network)




All in all, I want to have a kick-a$$ laptop.

 

[SimonDavies]

Sorry to say but you're pretty limited to what you can do with laptops.

One thing I would suggest first of all tho is running a 64bit OS as you're not using all of your ram (32 bit OS's are restricted to 3gb of Ram, that also includes video ram).

Other then that there really isn't a great deal you can change.

You want a kick ass machine, get a pc rather than a laptop.

Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[PRPhx]

If your looking for better performance from your hdd, I'd go with a 7200 rpm drive. And on occassion, do as mentioned, defrag it! I see Dell has 7200 rpm drives on their site for your laptop. They are, IMO, a bit procey. If you look around you might find one a bit cheaper.

 

[cdogg]

One thing I would suggest first of all tho is running a 64bit OS as you're not using all of your ram (32 bit OS's are restricted to 3gb of Ram, that also includes video ram).

It is true that the 32-bit version of Windows will not be able to use the entire 4GB. However, the amount that it does use isn't always a set number (such as 3GB or 3.25GB). This thread explains that in more detail:
thread602-1452884

The upgrade from 32-bit Windows to 64-bit isn't going to guarantee you better performance even though more memory is available. That fact alone makes the time and money involved not worth it.


Also keep in mind that since the release of XP, Microsoft has changed the way applications and files are stored and accessed. During idle times in XP, the system defrags portions of the drive rearranging files for faster application launches and boot times. This is part of the system known as the Windows Prefecther (

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefetcher).

Vista takes this a step further my automating disk defragmentation. Details on that below.


Windows Defragmenter - Vista vs. XP
[tab]

http://www.howtohaven.com/system/vistadefragmentation.shtml

ReadyBoost info
[tab]

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2917&p=5

ReadyBoost limitations
[tab]

http://www.schrockinnovations.com/vista_ready_boost.php

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
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