5400 rpm vs. 7200rpm

[claus0478]

Hi all,

How does HD with 7200rpm compare with 5400rpm? Does 7200rpm HD run hotter? Is it worth the extra buck?

chris

[K. Eng]

Generally, a 7200RPM drive is faster than a 5400RPM drive, but performance is also affected by cache and platter density.

7200RPM drives generally have very fast seek times, which makes a computer feel more responsive when opening programs and files.

[christopher_wolf]

It may or may not be worth the extra buck depending on what you do; a memory upgrade would give you a bit more tangible bang for your buck, so to speak. Unless you have an application whose efficiency depends on the HDD seek time or any other task that requires movement of very large amounts of data on and off the platters, chances are that you won't notice much of a difference between a 7200RPM HDD and a 5400RPM HDD. I have use both in my T43 under a wider variety of OSes and workloads and, frankly, didn't notice much at all; some things compiled a few seconds faster, quicker defrag, file I/O...BUt that was pretty much it. HTH

[brainpicker]

Hi all,

How does HD with 7200rpm compare with 5400rpm? Does 7200rpm HD run hotter? Is it worth the extra buck?

chris

My experience with 7200RPM drives is mixed. Are they faster? As Mr. Wolf said that depends on your uses. In most of my laptops I still use stock 4200RPM drives and I have no complaints. I have a few Hitachi 7K60's setting around unused because I don''t feel the hours spent installing them would be worthwhile. Are they hotter? Well, when I ran them in X31's they ALWAYS made the fan run (almost all the time) plus they vibrated too much for me, but in my T40's and T42's the fan issue wasn't as bad and I never noticed any irritating vibration. Maybe my experiences were due to the design of the laptops air exchange systems? Is it worth the extra buck? For ME no. For YOU, well I send you back to Mr. Wolf's post again because it depends on the demands your software will put on the drive. But I'll add that it may also depend on your tolerance for fan noise and/or vibration IF either of those turns out to be an issue in your machine. So, if you can't make use of the drive it's a no brainer. But if it would make a difference but in return have a side effect or two could you live with that? I'll add that I have no experience with the latest generation of these 7200RPM drive so maybe that makes a difference.

Good Luck!
-Yak

[icantux]

Hmm. there are a few factors to consider:

Will the drive make the machine run hotter?
It's all a matter of machine construction (size, internal placement, etc). I'm running T42 15" with a Hitachi 100GB 7200rpm as my primary drive and a Hitachi 60GB 7200rpm in the ultrabay (with adapter) for linux. No fan issues, no heat issues whatsoever. Indeed, the fan starts on occasion to dissipate heat but not in a distracting fashion. However, this type of setup may be cause for undue fan operation due to added heat on a different machine - say a tiny 14" X series (hee hee .. some here would describe my precious as being a "monster").

Regarding performance ...
In quite general terms, hard drives can be considered the choke point on any modern machine. System perfomance will directly correlate to drive speed. The faster the drive the better the system performance (on a modern machine that is).

Is bigger and faster any better?
There are two factors which determine this issue - cost and need. Although a faster drive may benefit those with high computing needs (such as database, server applications, graphics/video manipulation) these drives are not always beneficial for the casual user that will use a computer for any variety of reasons from surfing the internet to writing a book or even writing computer script. Furthermore, faster drives are more expensive than their slower counterparts, thus a lower cost but equally capable drive would be a better option for many users. (Equally capable meaning that a slower drive can perform the same functions as the higher cost alternative yet not as quickly).

Hope this helps

[donking!]

You should really search around the web for articles on this. There are a number of articles directly testing and comparing 7200rpm notebook drives to other rpm drives.

I researched this a while ago and found that the difference between 7200rpm drives and good 5400rpm drives was negligble. Often on the order of a 10% or so speed difference. I don't think that's anything anyone is going to notice. So I decided it wasn't worth the extra cost. I even saw 5400rpm drives that were faster than 7200rpm drives.

There are other factors than spindle speed that effect drive performance. So it's really important to know not just the specs of a particular drive, but to see the real world performance comparisons.

Here's a couple articles:

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/2 ... 1AS_1.html
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/hitachi_ ... 00rpm.html

[claus0478]

Thanks for all your informative and thorough answers!

chris,

[w0qj]

I have used a 7K60 for one year, then upgraded to 7K100 last month for company DVD video editing purposes (those files are HUGE, but that's another story...)


Points to consider:

1. The 7K100 is very noticably faster than 7K60 with same amount of 55 GB of data (about 10%-15% faster to my non-scientific estimate). Partly due to much higher magnetic data density, and parly due to your same amount of data being stored further out in the faster circumference of the HDD platters (it's only 7200 RPM at the very outer rims of the HDD platter, further in it's physically slower).
Bootup time is much faster.

2. I've heard some people estimate that the 7K60 is about 10% faster than the 5K100, although I don't have this HDD myself...


3. If you do any HDD intensive operations (especially DVD authoring, PC Desktop Searching programs such as X1 www. x1.com ), you need the fastest HDD you can get your hands on, if budget allows.

4. the 7K100 writes to the disk so fast (due to higher magnetic data density) that it actually gives you more graceful multitasking even when compared to the 7K60.

If you thought the 7K60 was fast, try out the 7K100 (either Seagate or Hitachi's) and you'll never look back...

[donking!]

If you thought the 7K60 was fast, try out the 7K100 (either Seagate or Hitachi's) and you'll never look back...

I know the 7K100 is a really fast great drive. But with all due respect I still differ on the idea that it's so straight forward what's the fastest drive, that it's all about spindle speed, and how much difference it will make.

If you look at the storagereview.com article I cite above, you'll see that in some instances Seagate's 7200rpm drive (the Momentus 7200.1) is actually slower than Hitachi's 5k100. In other instances, the Seagate is the fastest drive around. And by still other measures, Hitachi's 7k100 is the fastest.

In other research I did, I also found that there was little difference in speed between Seagates 5400rpm drive and the Hitachi's 7k60.

So there really isn't one obvious "fastest" drive and 7200rpm does not always equal fastest. As other's have mentioned data density makes a difference and so does the size of the cache.

I also really have trouble seeing 10% - 15% speed differences as significant (in most cases that's all the difference there is between the 5400rpm Seagates and Hitachis and the 7200rpm ones). When it comes down to it, if an operation that's going to take 30 minutes happens in 25.5 minutes instead (a 15% speed difference) is not a big difference to me. Basically it's taking about half an hour in each instance. Or if an operation is going to happen in 1 second happens in .85 seconds, can one really tell the difference?

In the end, the last time I bought hard drives (for my notebook and desktop) I went with Seagate (and on my notebook I went 5400rpm). I decided the speed differences weren't significant. But reading around bulletin boards, more IT people seemed to respect the Seagate drives than any other. The Seagates are the quietest drives. And Seagate offers a 5 year warranty (everyone else offers a 3 year warranty at best).

[carbon_unit]

Points to consider:

1. The 7K100 is very noticably faster than 7K60 with same amount of 55 GB of data (about 10%-15% faster to my non-scientific estimate). Partly due to much higher magnetic data density, and parly due to your same amount of data being stored further out in the faster circumference of the HDD platters (it's only 7200 RPM at the very outer rims of the HDD platter, further in it's physically slower).
Bootup time is much faster.

Close but not quite correct.
The rotational speed (RPM's) are the same on the inside and outside rims of the platter, they both make 1 revolution at the same time.
The surface speed (FPS) is different at the inside and outside rims of the platter and that does affect the data rate.

[w0qj]

Forget the guesstimate on % faster from 7K60 to 7K100.

I've just upgraded from a 7K60 to 7K100 on my T42 last month, and the difference was very noticeable.


The 7K100 is quite noticeably faster than 7K60 than it appears on paper, because of much higher data density.

ie: You can now multitask much more gracefully using 7K100.

eg: copying from CD to 7K100 HDD, the 7K100 HDD activity light actually turns on intermittently, freeing up CPU cycles for more mutitasking (in contrast, the 7K60 activity light was constantly on and Windows UI start to get sluggish if too many other programs are running).

eg: ditto for copying backup data from external USB hard drive to your 7K100, as compared to 7K60.

[donking!]

Forget the guesstimate on % faster from 7K60 to 7K100.

I've just upgraded from a 7K60 to 7K100 on my T42 last month, and the difference was very noticeable.


The 7K100 is quite noticeably faster than 7K60 than it appears on paper, because of much higher data density.

I wasn't contesting the idea that Hitachi's 7K100 is faster than it's 7K60 (because of data density). I was contesting the claim that ALL 7200 rpm drivers are faster than 5400rpm drives and that it's always obvious by the specifications what drive will be the fastest.

I also wasn't basing my claims on "guesstimates." I was basing them on extensive benchmarking done in actual tests and side by side comparisons on storagereview.com and xlr8yourmac.com.

Here's another review at barefeats that also makes my point:

http://www.barefeats.com/hard56.html

You'll see that compared to Seagate's Momentus 5400rpm drive, Hitachi's 7K60 in fact is not AT ALL faster, in all tests but one. And, as I already wrote, the other articles further show that, depending on the use (random access times, sequential transfer rates, content creation, etc.), it varies which drive is the best.

So yes, data density matters. And on that account Hitachi's 7K60 wasn't really that fast of a drive.

Lastly, I didn't say that no one would notice the difference in speed between different drives. I questioned whether one ALWAYS would notice the difference. I often think the differences aren't a big deal. Of course, this depends on how one is going to use a drive. But one should think about that before willy nilly going for the latest fastest thing and spending more money, if it turns out in one's personal actual practice it's not going to matter. So I was trying to help the person who started this thread find a way to answer for himself, for his own use, the question he posed, which is : is it worth the extra money for a 7200rpm drive?

And I presonally think that the answer to that question isn't obvious and isn't the same for everyone.

[donking!]

Here's another article benchmarking drives of varying speeds and data density.

Toms Hardware on Notebook Drives

[Edit 3/7/06:

And yet another article, just looking at the different 7200rpm drives.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storag ... -7200.html
Found this in this thread: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=21623

Also here's another thread discussing the relevance of drive speed question:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 051#137051 ]

[archer6]

donking!... Thanks for your very informative and useful (for me) posts here.

Between your feedback and the links you provided I have been able to make a money saving decision, I'm sticking with the 5400rpm drive in my T60.

[kashton]

Points to consider:

1. The 7K100 is very noticably faster than 7K60 with same amount of 55 GB of data (about 10%-15% faster to my non-scientific estimate). Partly due to much higher magnetic data density, and parly due to your same amount of data being stored further out in the faster circumference of the HDD platters (it's only 7200 RPM at the very outer rims of the HDD platter, further in it's physically slower).
Bootup time is much faster.

Close but not quite correct.
The rotational speed (RPM's) are the same on the inside and outside rims of the platter, they both make 1 revolution at the same time.
The surface speed (FPS) is different at the inside and outside rims of the platter and that does affect the data rate.

you must have paid attention in physics