Yes, HDD is generally faster if you are doing a lot of small writes. Vista, even XP, does not work well on SSD. It all depends on what you want to do with it.

…Finally, would replacing the 5,400 rpm Seagate Momentus on the 1000H with a faster hard drive, perhaps a 7,200 rpm drive, make a tangible difference in performance at a much lower cost?

The 5,400 RPM Momentus is among the slowest/cheapest mobile HDDs available.

According to a benchmark commissioned by IDC, a good 7,200 RPM HDD is actually SUBSTANTIALLY FASTER than Flash SSD in several application benchmarks that perform >>concurrent<< read and write operations.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/07/17/ssd-performance-gap-small/1

“The main complaint the firm has with the SSD makers is that their comparisons are always between the latest and greatest SSD devices and old/slow 4,200 RPM mechanical drives. These comparisons don’t make sense in a world where 5,400 RPM mechanical drives are the norm, and top-end laptops are shipped with 7,200 RPM drives.”

“IDC compared 7,200 RPM drives with SSD drives and, perhaps most importantly, took the performance of the entire system into account when compiling his results. The conclusion of the research is that previous comparisons against low-end HDDs have been misleading…”

One test where 7,200 RPM HDD blew SSD away was (surprisingly) boot-up time, where the 7,200 RPM HDD was faster than ANY SSD they tested!

Tell me again…why am I going to buy an SSD that costs 8x as much per gigabyte as a 7,200RPM HDD and dosn’t make my system go faster?

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=44736

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=44928

Jerry Says:
July 10th, 2008 at 3:20 am

Tina sounds like a misguided bimbo acting like a tech geek

I’m a bit late to comment, but Jerry sounds like a misogynist. Furthermore, his analogy is COMPLETELY flawed to boot (fast car does fewer MPGs, so overall distance would be smaller than slower car doing more MPG.) What an embarrassment. Ditch the bimbo-bashing speak, it’s not needed.

However for the benefits of my critics I’ll claify my point a little more.

Data is valuable yes – ssd’s provide far greater data security from physical damage.

I run around in rough terrain with a RUNNING laptop, all be it with the lid closed. This is certainly no task for a platter type HDD.

I don’t often drop a laptop, but mine is sbject to some fairly rough handling, usually not enough to damage the screen or peripherals, but a definite risk of leaving a footprint on a disk.

Also, less weight means less G force, and that equates to less succeptability to physical damage, ssd’s walk all over HDD’s in that department.

In summary:

I beleive that HDD’s still have their place and are still paramount for their application, but I also beleive that SSD’s (being in a whole different category) have made some things possible that just simply were not viable in the past.

My opinion on their speed:

I have seen many reviews stating conflicting information on the speeds of different drives. When treated optimally, it seems that an SSD “CAN be”, but is not neccesarily faster than a HDD, it all depends what you want to do with it.

Different application, different technology.

lastly, I would encourage people to re-read my posts before jumping to the defence of something that was not being attacked. This seems to be a regular occurence.