How much will replacing HD effect battery life?

[Sgt.Pepper]

I want to swap my 200GB, 7200rpm hard-drive with a 320 GB, 7200rpm hard-drive, and use my 200Gb hard-drive as an external HD.

before I do it I want to know will my battery life be effected much with this change?

 

[RKpro]

I swapped my 5400rpm 250GB Hitachi drive that came with the MBP for a 320GB 7200rpm Seagate drive last week. There wasn't a any noticeable battery life decreases. I'm pretty sure it would make even less difference for you if you are swapping one 7200rpm drive for another.

 

[kastenbrust]

You wont get any difference in battery life whatsoever, Hard Drives hardly take up any of a laptops power supply to begin with, the main factors affecting battery life are the screen and processor.

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

Sweet, a bigger hard-drive it is then!

 

[Stangs55]

Going from 5400rpm to 7200rpm will shorten battery life, but YMMV depending on what you are doing. IRL, it's likely minimal and worth the performance increase.

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

I currently have a 7200rmp HD I'm just doing to a larger HD (which has the same rpm), if you were referring to me.

 

[kastenbrust]

Going from 5400rpm to 7200rpm will shorten battery life, but YMMV depending on what you are doing. IRL, it's likely minimal and worth the performance increase.

actually sometimes going from 5400rpm to 7200rpm can extend the battery life, because data is accessed faster so the hard drive doesnt have to be accessed so often or for as long, especially when opening multiple files, listening to music, watching photos, editing video etc.