[olug] Laptop Hard Drive Size / Speed

[Dave Rowe]

Hello all,

I'm thinking about replacing my laptop hard drive (which I believe is
4200RPM) - with a 5400RPM drive.  My question / call for opinions is -
is that enough to see a sizable speed increase?  I'm not sure what the
seek rate on the current disk is, but anything IO intensive (MySQL
reloading DBs) is horribly slow.  Is getting a 7200RPM worth it in
terms of battery life?  This would be SATA, if that matters.

Second, I've noticed that the physical dimensions vary (at least at a
glance) - but is it enough to research if a particular drive will fit
the laptop body, or are they generally standard width / height /
depth?

-Dave