Difference in laptop hard drive rpm's

[munch2477]

I have a 60 gb hitachi 5k80, 8 mb buffer size, 5400 rpm and am looking to upgrade to a 80 gb hitachi travelstar 7k100, 8 mb buffer size, 7200 rpm. How much of a difference would going from 5400 rpm to 7200 rpms? Since extra space isnt really an issue, is upgrading the rpms worth $85?

 

[LinkedKube]

rpms come in handy when you need to load games and large applications. I wouldnt live w/o 7200 rpm or more.

 

[Nodsu]

RPM translate pretty directly to random access performance. 7200 / 5400 = 1,3333 so the 7200 RPM drive would be roughly 1.3 times faster than the 5400 RPM one when doing random access.

 

[munch2477]

thanks guys. is it easy to switch hard drives though? thats the one other thing im worried about