Odd Laptop HD Option

[Stuey]

I ordered a Dell notebook yesterday. 5400 HD speeds are ok by me, but I don't see why most of the HDs have 2mb buffers even though they're SATA drives. Some of the notebooks offer 7200 spindle speed options, and they're the only drives which have 8mb buffers. Or so I thought. I was looking carefully at the options and the "help me choose" information and I noticed that the 100gb drives with 5400 spindle speeds (no other option for the E1505 series) had 8mb buffers. So naturally I ended up with that option. The only thing is that it's adding 5 days to my build time.

I also noticed that on Dell's accessory page, they only sell spare HDs which have 8mb buffers.

What bugs me is that I can buy a 2.5" notebook HD from Newegg for cheaper than upgrading the Dell option, but frankly if I'm going to lay down at least $1k, I may as well have Dell rip me off $50 here and maybe another $50 there.

Sorry for the rant. But I just don't understand why they would throw HDs with 2mb buffers into dual core notebooks. Unless their "help me choose" information is outdated and I'm wasting some cash and an extra week of waiting. Any ideas?

[Stuey]

Nobody wants to share their 2 cents?

[rspassey]

Hmm. That is interesting. I hadn't noticed that, personally, because when I configure laptops at Dell, it is just to see what kind of prices I could get a nice one for - nothing serious. Thanks for pointing that out - I will keep it in mind when I think more into ordering a laptop for myself and for my Grandfather.

Really is shocking that 8mb cache harddrives @ 7.2k rpm are probably the norm for most new retail prebuilt desktops (with differing sizes) - on higher end custom builds I am noticing a lot more people go for the 16 Mb Cache 7200 rpm drives (again, differing in sizes).

I am no expert on laptops (nor anything computers, lol) but perhaps there is some reason (perhaps power consumption) which makes Dell Laptops have lower Cache HDDs - or perhaps it is just to save a few bucks when the general public has no clue what the difference is between different HDD caches and just looks at size / RPMS.

[glc]

I have never looked at laptop drives from a performance standpoint - it's just a different world than desktops. I have a 5400 rpm 2mb cache drive in my laptop and I'm perfectly happy with it - in fact, I'm happy with 4200 rpm drives.

[Stuey]

I just remember seeing a considerable difference in performance when I replaced a 4200/2mb HD with a 5400/8mb HD. I wasn't aware there would be such a difference so I was pretty amazed at the time. Since everything else in the system I just purchased is aimed at performance I don't see why they use the 2mb buffer drives when better options are available for only a marginal increase in cost.

I know it's not appropriate to view laptop components in the same way as desktop components are viewed. As Ryan pointed out, it does seem that Dell is just trying to save a few dollars and shave the savings off the system price, for the end user who doesn't care. A marginal decrease in cost coupled with the cutting of that extra basic price margin probably does result in an appreciable price difference.

Ah well, maybe I need something different to obsess over, like considering whether or not my integrated graphics will be able to handle Vista's aeroglass features.

Maybe the performance