So I'm configuring a new laptop from Apple and I'm undecided as to which HD option to go with. I think there may even be a 250 GB 4200RPM option and that'd win over the 200 GB. But let's just compare the 160 to the 200 read/write and access speeds. Which should I get? Is the speed difference compelling enough to make the choice easy or is it just a matter of similar speeds and different capacity?

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well, that depends on what you are doing. if its for storing music and such, even programs maybe, then higher is better, but if it is for documents or other things like that, maybe music (depending if you listen to it that often), then slower is ok. it also depend on how much u have to store. i would go with the faster one personally cuz i use lots of apps and listen to music, so it scans it faster. then if i need to, i go and buy an external. so i would personally choose the 160gb, cuz for me that is almost enough, and i have a 320gb external, so faster is fine with me. just depend on the use.

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I agree with robocz; the faster one definitely has more advantages. I mean, 4200 is a long way off 7200 rpm which is pretty standard ^^
160gb should be enough, unless your into uncompressed DV footage; that's like 15gb/hour and you can always get a convenient external HD... (theyre v. cheap now!)

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I forgot to mention that the faster drive is $150 more then the slower version: 160 GB 5400 RPM which comes standard. So I ordered the laptop standard and we'll put in a new one when this one fills up. No biggie. By then they'll probably have 320 GB drives for under $200 and I'll slide that one in. I'm seven months into my laptop which has the same HD and I'm just a little over half full. Should be a while before I use the whole thing up.

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Well I would have to agree that depending what you use your computer would determine which hard drive to use, but since you want a good one for a low price I would go with the one thats $150 less. Of course you could just purchase a external HD thats in the 400-500 GB range and store your files there for extra backup and even make some room on your laptop as well.

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If i were to suggest something on this, i would recommend you to go for the faster access speed. Because access time would make more difference in the end i guess.

With DVD writers there, i guess your access speed would matter more than the storage capacity. I too had a similar dilemma last week, when i had to choose between a 160 GB and a 250 GB hard disk. After thinking over it, i settled for the 160 Gb.

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Oh, yeah... That's why I'm only a little more then half through my 160GB HD.... I've got all my music files stored in the .5TB drive up on the shelf. Makes a nice book end and saves my internal HD mucho space! I may have to buy another one as a matter of fact! This time it'll be WIFI networkable though. I'm tired of always having to plug into everything!

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In my experience, you should always go for the fastest system disk you can: faster booting, loading of files and page file speed (Windows) are the best you can have: games run faster, and video/audio editing runs faster.

For a system disk, you probably don't need as much space as possible unless you know you will never fill the larger size, but will fill the smaller size: why? Because if you buy an external Hard drive, you will end up storing ALL of your large files on it (especially multimedia), because you will prefer to keep it all together (as some people may have found out)

Since the cost for external hard-drives is plummeting, whilst the cost of internal hard-drives is pretty much constant, upgrading space will always be cheaper, but upgrading the speed of a system dirve, especially in a laptop is just not worth it after you have bought it...

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