7200RPM isn't always faster than 5400RPM...

[LordSwedish]

Hi there. I noticed a lot of threads buzzing around here lately about the various hard drive speeds.
Probably because of places like BestBuy and CircuitCity slasing prices on everything for Friday.

To get to the point, I'd actually go for 5400RPM right now over 7200RPM.
I have a 13.5GB WD Expert running at 7200RPM's and a Maxtor 40GB running at 5400RPM.

My Maxtor kicks the WD out of the park. It has significantly lower seek times, and much faster transfer rates believe it or not. Believe it.
Not to mention the WD is VERY LOUD. I mean VERY LOUD.

You can never hear the Maxtor though. Maybe its just Maxtor or maybe it's the RPM difference. But that's just my experience..

 

[Vegito]

it also depends on the density of the drive, if you get 2 40gb at 7200 and 5400 the 7200 will kick the 5400 out, ie all 60/100gb drive are 5400 for now.. till later.

 

[DSTA]

Density, yup, but AFAIK the newest Maxtors are 40GB per platter, so I think even an earlier 7200 rpm drive with 4 10G platters would have a hard time keeping up. Haven't seen any benches though.

 

[LukFilm]

DUH! Of course, my three-year old 10GB hard drive is going to be much slower than just-released 80GB 5400 rpm hard drive. Your point is? You must compare apples to apples, i.e. current generations of hard drives.

 

[nortexoid]

well, he did ONLY say taht 7200rpm sin't ALWAYS faster than 5400rpm, which is correct.

though misleading of course.
(u stupid idiot...joking, i felt like insulting right here and now)

 

[LongTimePCUser]

The point being made is that a very new 160 GB / 5400 rpm drive when it comes out might be as fast or faster than a recent 80 GB / 7200 rpm drive. The newest, largest capacity drives often come out first at 5400 rpm and many people ignore them because they think that they will be slower than lower capacity 7200 rpm drives. Data transfer rate = (rotation speed) * (data density).

 

[Rand]

Of course it isnt always faster. If all other factors are equal a 7200 RPM drive tends to be considerably higher performing.... but if you go out and buy a top of the line very nice 5400 RPM HDD, you'll bet it will thoroughly humiliate a couple year old 7200RPM model in every way.

Spindle speed is only one aspect of performance, and obviously a 7200RPM spindle speed is nice, but it doesnt guarantee it will be faster.
If you compare drives of a similar generation though, you can bet a 7200RPM model will clearly be faster.

 

[MrGrim]

<< To get to the point, I'd actually go for 5400RPM right now over 7200RPM. >>



Not sure if I understant what you mean ... do you think that a BRANDX HD @ 5400RPM could perform better than a SAMEBRANDX @ 7200RPM? If that's what you meant you are wrong. The IBM GXP60 (and many others for that matter) will perform better than any drive @ 5400RPM of the same generation.

 

[Jiggz]

I hate to say this but I will not add more coal to the flame you're getting. Next time make sure you compare apples to apples and orange to orange. Comparing a 7200 RPM 2.0 Liter engine with a 5400 V8 5.0 liter engine is not an "apples to apples" comparison.

 

[Moohooya]

Granted the data transfer rate of a 5400 may be higher if it is a higher density than the 7200, but the 7200 will have a faster access time.

So with an old 7200 drive, a new 5400 drive and lots of small files (say you are a developer like myself with thousands of source code files), a 7200 will still outpace the 5400.

You could as well say "A mainframe isn't always faster than a laptop." Take a 10 year old mainframe and todays hottest laptop etc etc etc. Well duh?

 

[redhatlinux]

When considering 5400 vs 7200, latency is the only part of the equation where the 7200 is going to be faster. Latency is averaged at 1/2 the time for 1 rev, meaning that the data that is required to be written or read is, on average, 1/2 a rev away at the completion of the drive seek. 7200rpm drives may have a fster seek time, I stress MAY. The may have a bigger cache, they may have higher areal density. Spindle rpm is just 1 part of the data access equation.

 

[cuteybunny]

5400 rpm sucks no matter how you look at it, i dunno why some people cling to it as it worth every pennies. 5400 rpm vs 7200 is like 3600 vs 5400. what I really dont get is why manufacturer stick with it and cheap people will buy it all the time. they need to take all of it off the shelves and replace with 7200 as the standard, and 10,000 rpm drives should be the same price of 7200 of what they have today if they had put it out by now.

 

[Jerboy]

7200RPM is always faster when you use it for your boot drive. I used to have 8.4GB 5400RPM Maxtor as a boot drive and 40GB 7200RPM as data drive. Not the smartest thing, but I needed that space for data and its always been my tradition to have a different physical drive for data.

Right now I'm using Quantum Fireball AS 7200RPM 40GB as a boot drive and Western Digital Caviar 7200RPM 40GB for data. The Quantum was a big boost. Data drive 7200RPM, 5400RPM no diff. If a good friend was building his system, I'll let him have my 7200RPM in exchange for similar sized 5400RPM. Its that insignificant for data drive in REAL LIFE use.


So lets see ya Sandra drive scores

Quantum Fireball AS 7200RPM 40GB: 22500
Western Digital Caviar 7200RPM 40GB:21305

 

[Rand]

<<
So lets see ya Sandra drive scores
>>



SiSoft Sandra's HDD benchmarks are nearly the single most worthless and unrepresentable benchmark there is. The only SiSoft benchmark worth a damn is it's memory bandwidth test, and even that's not very good.
If you want to rely on Sandra's HDD bench then you may as well pick a number at random, because that's about as good as what Sandra does.
Also, Sandra's test is heavily effected by other factors besides the HDD itself, and scores tend to vary heavily between test runs.

If you really want SiSoft results then I can hand you a few situations in which it's claimed a modern 10K RPM SCSI drive (Maxtor/Quantum Atlas 10K III) is slower then a two year old 5400RPM IDE drive that was low end even when originally released.

 

[Goi]

When all other parameters are the same, a 7200rpm drive will ALWAYS be faster than its 5400RPM counterpart. Its just plain common sense! Of course, if you start changing parameters like number of platters, platter density, etc, things are gonna change and it won't be a fair comparison anymore.
Anyway, the WD Expert series is pretty old. I have a 20.5GB WD Expert myself and while it was the fastest drive on the block when it was just released, its getting a lil long in the tooth now.