What performance gain is there from a 5400 rpm to a 7200?

[khold]

Hello,

If you were to compare two identical hard drives, except for one being a 5400 and the other being a 7200 RPM drive, what kind of performance increase would there be? Would it be extremely noticeable, or not really?

(I am sort of having an arguement with a friend about this)

 

[Francodman]

Extremely noticeable.

 

[H8tank]

I really didn't notice much of a difference going from a 13GB 5400 Maxtor to a 10GB 7200.

I was hopeing for more, but I just didn't see it.

 

[Yoshi64]

When I went from a 6.4 Gb 5400 RPM Fujitsu to my current IBM 34GXP I noticed a BIG difference!

 

[NFS4]

I noticed a big jump from 5400 to 7200

 

[SUOrangeman]

If both drives have the same protocol (i.e., ATA66) and both have the same platter density, then the 7200 would be faster. Quite simply, it's covering more of the platter.

But there is no such true comparison. Today's 5400 ATA66 drives have a higher platter density than 7200 ATA66 drives. Therefore, the 5400 model doesn't have to cover as much graound to read the same amount of data.

-SUO

 

[khold]

SUO, very informative post

 

[KarsinTheHutt]

Perhaps its only noticable if you are transfering LARGE amounts of data. For everyday tasks I seriously doubt its that noticable.

 

[Auric]

SUO, I don't know if that is a correct generalization about density. IBM's latest PC drives have 15GB platters for either the 7200 or 5400, no? Maybe there are some larger 5400 drives with higher density but I don't think it is common.

 

[Eli]

Karsin: There is a HUGE diffrence between 5400 and 7200rpm. You would certainly notice it, especially if your 5400rpm drive is of any age..

 

[AMB]

I can notice it, I would say that there is not a huge difference pf price between the two as well, so yes, it is worth it

 

[Ulysses]

If you go to http:// [url]http://www.storagereview.com/ [/url], and to their 'Database' section, you can actually compare their tests of different HDD's in more ways than you'll probably want to. You just pick the drives that you're interested in.

 

[DaddyG]

I've posted this before regarding 5400 and 7200 but one more time.

As the original post indicated, if everything is equal, seek time, areal density, cache size, the difference is Drive Latency. A typical Disk I/O consists of 3 pieces:

Drive SEEK assume 9msecs for either drive.

Drive Latency which is, on average, 1/2 of the time for 1 revolution

Data Transfer

At 7200 rpm the latency is 4.17 msecs

At 5400 rpm the latency is 5.65 mecs

The data transfer speed is really dependant on the interface (100/66/33) so no real difference.

The big difference is usually due to bigger cache, better seek time and higher areal density, not the pure rpms of the drive.

 

[Pariah]

SUO, that isn't true. In the IDE market, if the manufacturer doesn't release 7200 and 5400 drives with the same density, like IBM, then the 7200 usually follows within a month or 2.

"The big difference is usually due to bigger cache, better seek time and higher areal density, not the pure rpms of the drive."

DaddyG, show me an example where the cache size effects performance. Not theoretical, show me benchmarks. It doesn't effect performance, especially not in the IDE market, where sizes don't vary much.

Yes, it is the pure RPM's that make it faster. What would make you think it isn't? Faster spindle speed directly effects latency which improves access time. Yes, areal density will increase STR, and if you have a 7200 and 5400 with the same density, the faster spindle will directly lead to faster transfers.

 

[duragezic]

I think theres a big difference with a 7200rpm compared to a 5400rpm. On the other hand, I noticed very little, if any, when switching from ATA/33 to ATA/66.

 

[Gepost]

I went from a 6.4, 5400 Maxtor to a 13.6, 7200 Maxtor. My complete load-up time went from 115 seconds to 65 seconds. Almost cut it in half.

 

[4824guy]

Maxtor and WD advertise that 5400 vs. 7200 hd's are 25 or 27% faster.

I would say it is true also, I noticed a big change when booting up and accessing a program from the HD. Sorry I can't find the info how how long my boot up time was cut down to when I moved to a 7200 rpm(2meg cache, working at ata33 mode) drive.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

7200RPM drives are typically quite noticeably faster than 5400's...but I'm sure you could find a cheap 7200RPM drive that sagged behind a good quality 5400. There are other factors but typically more RPMs = more speed

 

[CAF]

I'm not all that experienced with opperating systems and hardware, but I have installed quite a few hard drives in both my friends and my own computers, and there seams be a very significant difference between the time it takes a 5400 rpm drive with windows 98 installed to boot up, than it does for a 7200 rpm drive with windows 98 to!
The 7200 is definately faster, but it does also depend on the speed of your processor, the amount of ram you have, and your cache!!!

 

[SUOrangeman]

OK, does any manufacturer make nearly identical models that only vary in spindle speee (5400 vs. 7200)? I'd like to take a look that what StorageReview says about the two drives.

Yes, I may have generalized things a bit in my earlier post, but I'm really trying to emphasize that 5400 vs. 7200 isn't the only factor to consider.

-SUO

 

[Burn]

SUO - Try the Maxtor DiamondMax 40 and the DiamondMax 40+.

Also just a note about platter densities. Maxtor just announced a 5400rpm drive with a platter density of 20GB, but no 7200rpm drive to match it. See: http://www.storagereview.com

And yes, to answer the original question I notice a great difference between 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives. I work in computer store and build a lot of PC's with Fujitsu hard drives. The 7200rpm are noticably faster booting up windows etc...