What Is the Difference Between 320 GB Hard Drive or a 250 GB Hard Drive for a Laptop?

Hard drives have different memory storage capacities.

Between music, photos, movies and software, it's very easy to completely fill a hard drive. With 28 percent more storage capacity than a 250 GB hard drive, a 320 GB hard drive won't fill up quite as fast.

Memory

Hard drive capacity can be measured in gigabytes and terabytes. A megabyte is defined as 1 million bytes. A gigabyte is made up of 1,000 MB, while a terabyte consists of 1,000 GB.

Media Memory Usage

A typical three-minute music file is about 3 MB. A 10-megapixel photo is about 2.5 MB. A high-definition video file can use 100 MB per minute of footage. When comparing, the 320 GB hard drive could hold 23,333 more songs, 28,000 more photos or 11.6 more hours of high-definition video than a 250 GB hard drive.

Drive Speed

Hard drives for notebook computers typically run at 5,400 or 7,200 revolutions per minute (RPM). Drives with more storage capacity typically run faster. The higher the RPM a drive operates at, the quicker it can read and write data, and the more heat it generates.

References

• National Institute of Standards and Technology: Definitions of the SI Units - The Binary Prefixes
• SD Association: Find the Right SD Memory Card
• Newegg: Learning Center for Laptop Hard Drives