7200 rpm hard drive...how much performance boost ?

[302efi]

Right now I have an old 12 gig WD 5400 rpm as my storage drive. I'm running put of space fast so its time to get a bigger HD. What kind of performance increase would there be if I went to a 7200 rpm with an 8mg buffer ?

I'm not talking about numbers on paper, any real world FPS increase or the such ?

 

[MrChad]

Your load times should improve significantly. I'm not sure hard drive speeds have any effect on frames-per-second, however.

EDIT: effect

 

[Sunner]

It's not like 5400RPM drives are common in stores these days anyway, so unless you REALLY want a 5400 RPM drive...

 

[n7]

I don't have any tests, but when i used my old 5400RPM drive as the boot drive instead of my 7200RPM 2MB cache one, it was noticeably slower for the Windows install, & loadup times of everything in general.

I'm sure an 8MB cache 7200RPM will be even better

 

[x2ThorsHammer2x]

the 7200 will load a LOT faster than the 5400, i dont have any numbers, but i know it will be faster. your HD has nothing to do with FPS so you can't test it like that but there is no real reason to go out of your way to find a 5400 when 7200 are so plentiful, and if and when you do get the 7200 go for the 8 mb buffer, again , no reason not to

 

[daveshel]

The performance difference between 5400 and 7200 is vast: maybe the most dramatic of all the variables in performance characteristics over the last couple years.

 

[DrMindbender]

The best part. It will be quieter. Maybe it's just because mine is newer regardless of speed.

 

[BFG10K]

I'm not talking about numbers on paper, any real world FPS increase or the such ?

Only disk access times would increase, not FPS as it has nothing to do with the HD.

 

[302efi]

I was thinking that since the disk acccess time would be faster, it would also have an positive effect on game performance.

 

[BZeto]

I remember when I made the jump to a 7200rpm drive, I had the biggest smile on my face when windows loaded up so fast. Not to mention it shut down a lot faster too.

 

[302efi]

Originally posted by: daveshel
The performance difference between 5400 and 7200 is vast: maybe the most dramatic of all the variables in performance characteristics over the last couple years.

Really ? Damn !!!

I would think that the performance leaps video cards have made in the past couple years would take that honor.

 

[daveshel]

Originally posted by: DrMindbender
The best part. It will be quieter. Maybe it's just because mine is newer regardless of speed.

Don't count on that. Some of the 7200s can really scream, and you won't notice it early on your build, but when the Windows high speed disk driver kicks in, you wonder if you missed the pilot's cross check announcement.

 

[deanx0r]

12GB? or 120GB hdd you have?

Performance come from the rotating speed of a hdd AND the density of the hdd I believe.
With more GB sqeezed on each plateau, at the same rotating speed, a 200GB hdd should be significantly faster than a 40GB hdd if I am not wrong.

 

[deanx0r]

Originally posted by: daveshel

Originally posted by: DrMindbender
The best part. It will be quieter. Maybe it's just because mine is newer regardless of speed.

Don't count on that. Some of the 7200s can really scream, and you won't notice it early on your build, but when the Windows high speed disk driver kicks in, you wonder if you missed the pilot's cross check announcement.

That's if you bought a seagate, wd or some maxtor hdd.
Samsung and Hitachi came up with some very quiet and cool drive. Best of all... they are cheap and very fast.

 

[JWMiddleton]

Originally posted by: 302efi

Originally posted by: daveshel
The performance difference between 5400 and 7200 is vast: maybe the most dramatic of all the variables in performance characteristics over the last couple years.

Really ? Damn !!!

I would think that the performance leaps video cards have made in the past couple years would take that honor.

The higher desity platters put more data on each track, plus it is spinning faster which makes the newer drives much faster.

I have a Toshiba notebook with a 4200 RPM drive. What a piece of crap! So, I gave it to my wife and bought a new Dell XPS lappy with a 7200 RPM drive. She noticed that it takes longer to load an app she uses. I said yeah, but once it is loaded you can reload it really fast! lol