5400 rpm vs 7200 rpm HD's

[mikey76]

Is there any advantage to using a 7200 rpm drive in an older computer that is ATA 66 ? I.E., can a ATA 66 IDE bus keep up with a 7200 rpm drive, or should I just stick with 5400 rpm

😕

 

[HeSaidWhat]

Yes the ATA 66 can keep up. It is worth it to get the 7200 rpm drives.

 

[minendo]

but its nice to stay with the 5400 if you dont want the "whine" of the 7200 drive😉

 

[Kingofcomputer]

today's 7200rpm hd is pretty quiet, the power supply's fan, case fan, cpu fan noise could be even higher than the hd, and you're not sticking your ears to the computer, you won't hear the hd noise.

the performance difference is quite significant, for example:

Maxtor D540X
http://www.maxtor.com/products/DiamondMax/diamondmax/DataSheet/D540X133_datasheet.pdf

Data Transfer Speed (MByte/sec, max)
To/From Interface 100/133
To/From Media 43.4
Sustained at OD 35.9
Sustained at ID 17.8

D740X
http://www.maxtor.com/products/DiamondMax/DiamondMaxPlus/DataSheet/D740X_datasheet.pdf

Data Transfer Speed (MByte/sec, max)
To/From Interface 133
To/From Media 54.2 <----------- 25% higher than similar 5400rpm model
Sustained at OD 44.4 <----------- 24%
Sustained at ID 24.2 <----------- 36%

 

[eplebnista]

IMO, with prices being so close, I'd also recommend going with the 7200rpm. I score ~23XXX with Sandra with an IBM U100 7200RPM on a U66 Promise Controller PCI Card. That is on an original OEM Intel Se440BX-1.

hth,
eplebnista

 

[Blayze]

I use a 7200 rpm drive for my main drive and a 5400 rpm one for storage.

I would go with a 7200 rpm drive

 

[Willoughbyva]

I've used the 7200 drives for the past 3 or so years. Since the hard drive is about the slowest thing in your computer (as far as accessing information) it is better to have the fastest hard drive as possiable.

 

[Carl Uman]

I agree with most others here. Get the 7200RPM drive. ATA66 will benefit and most drives within the last year are very quite (make less noise than power supply fan).

 

[mikey76]

Thanks guys

🙂😀

 

[Ryukumu]

I've been using a 13.6gb WD 7200rpm ATA/66 hard drive for two years. Pretty quiet and pretty fast, even when I had a motherboard that only supported up to ATA/33.

 

[Mikendi]

If you got the moolah step up to SCSI if not I'd go with 7200prm drives.