2.5" HD - 7,200 & 5,400 rpm have same 100Mb rate?

sorry missed out links

ATA 7,200rpm 100Mb = http://www.ciao.co.uk/Seagate_Momentus_7200_1_ST980825A_80_GB__6277324

ATA 5,400rpm 100Mb = http://www.ciao.co.uk/Seagate_Momentus_5400_3_ST980815A_80_GB__6464835

also: on a search for my current drive TOSHIBA MK6034 GSX 60Gb some search say its a SATA device but on my properties it says ATA and i think its IDE

7200 RPM drives are indeed faster then 5400 RPM drives. That 100MB/s transfer speed is the maximum interface speed - the connection between the drive and the computer, not the internal read/write speed of data to/from the platters, which is below 100MB/s for all drives.

The TOSHIBA MK6034 GSX is a SATA drive. SATA, Serial ATA drives are still ATA drives.

so i would definatley see some performance increase if I upgraded my laptop and changed my 60Gb 5.400 drive for a 100Gb 7,200 drive and upgraded my RAM from 1Gb to 2Gb - things like boot+load times would be better as would Vistas performance once loaded , also the superfetch would have more room and be able to fill it quicker with the faster drive...

Sure, upgrading to a faster spindle speed and to a larger capacity drive will improve performance somewhat, nothing huge and it will reduce the battery run time by a small amount too as many 7200 RPM drives use a little more power.

Upgrading to 2GB of RAM will result in a bigger difference, Vista doesn't run all that great with only 1GB of RAM. 2 or more gigs of RAM is required for Vista and applications under Vista to run smoothly.

............ in my drive properties it says ATA and in instances it says IDE... does this mean I can fit a 150Mb SATA 7200rpm drive? hope so... then i have more options

Well the model number of the drive says its Serial ATA. Windows and some drivers don't always differentiate between PATA or SATA drives. FYI, all drives are IDE.

in Hardware Properties , policies , Write Caching & Safe Removal it has ENABLE FOR ADVANCED PERFORMANCE - this is a SATA option if im right - so in theory would this option not be available or greyed out if it WASNT a SATA device? cos its available and I have it ON

IDE / ATA device is all i can find about it on Vista

Just go by the model number of the drive.

Or take the drive out and look at the connectors.

http://compreviews.about.com/od/storage/l/aaSerialATA.htm

says here : http://www.sistematics.com/FichaProducto.asp?IdProd=HSA0016

"Serial ATA or SATA is an evolution of the parallel ATA (PATA, also known as IDE)"

Ive always thought IDE and SATA were different Interfaces - on Desktops anyway they are sold as IDE drives or SATA drives and have diff interfaces/cables

I did find one site that said my current drive was ATA/IDE but cant find it...

I think you may be right... I hope so... I will have a look

its a laptop drive , it has loads of pins like IDE ... dunno if 2.5" SATA have same connectors as 3.5"?!?!

good news - it IS sata , i got it out and checked... great - does this mean I can get SATA II laptop drive @ 7200rpm...?

Probably, but you'd have to check the laptop's specs. If the laptop only has SATA 1.5Gb/s then you won't get the benefit of the features of SATA 3Gb/s like faster burst speeds and NCQ.

erm - i think its just SATA 150MB the fastest drive i can find is 7200rpm

7200 RPM is the fastest laptop drives go, even for desktops there are only 3 drives above 7200 RPM. Again, adding more RAM is going to make more of a difference anyway.