7200rpm vs. 5400rpm HDs: throughput gain?

[kjarrett]

Can anyone tell me how much of a jump in performance you get from a 7200rpm drive vs. a 5400?

How does it compare to the jump from 4200 to 5400?

Thanks, kj

[jdhurst]

I cannot give you a quantitative measurement, but I can say this: After shelling out the hard-earned cash for the 7200-rpm drive, I would never voluntarily return to a slower drive. It makes the system run better, open apps faster, seem smoother, and so on. I really like it. ... JDHurst

[atlacatl]

Can anyone tell me how much of a jump in performance you get from a 7200rpm drive vs. a 5400?

How does it compare to the jump from 4200 to 5400?

Thanks, kj

Second that one - I replaced the 5400 rpm with a 7200 rpm, and I don't think I'd go back...

I don't have specific measurements, though...

[Binglehopper]

yea, aside from actual specs, the main thing hard drive speed (rpm) affects it the seek time on the hard drive. so there's almost a direct relationship between rpm's and seek time. and consequently, less seek time generally means better performance.

i would totally agree with jdhurst (I shelled out for the 7200 rpm too), as most people think cpu and memory are the main two things in making a computer faster. if the data can't get to the cpu and memory quick enough, then there's a significant bottleneck...

[w0qj]

try these:

Fast And Furious: Notebooks vs. Battery Life Drain
www6.tomshardware.com/mobile/20031031

Revolt of the Munchkins: 2.5" 5,400 and 7,200 rpm Hard Drives
www20.tomshardware.com/storage/20030813/index.html


i've been following this forum for 2 mths on this very topic of 7200rpm vs. 5400rpm hard drives.


the forum consensus (pls correct me if others don't feel this way):

A) from 4200rpm to 5400rpm: BIG HDD performance gain
B) from 5400rpm to 7200rpm: Smaller noticable HDD performance gain

C) IBM Thinkpad T42's use Hitachi Travelstar, so you choose either:
Hitachi 7200rpm and 60GB, or
Hitachi 5400rpm and 80GB
Note: some say there is only a slight performance difference between the two, but with 20GB more HDD space on the latter 80GB drive.

D) i've read in Toms Hardware Review that these 2 above HDD's consume about the same amount of power (almost no battery penalty!).
but be aware 7K60 (7200rpm) HDD runs hotter, so you pay by keeping the cooling fan on for longer.

[stgreek]

I replaced my 5400 with a 7200 a few days ago and I can definetely say that the performance gain is much more significant than you would think, everything seems so much faster. Battery life is pretty much the same, it does get a little bit hotter but nothing noticeable. Add me to the guys above that wouldn't go back after buying the 7200 drive.

Stavros

[kjarrett]

Awesome, guys, thanks.

I use a prog called HDTach to measure throughput. Apparently there is a new version out:

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/in ... est=HdTach

I've used this to document the speed jumps after HD changes. Very handy. Perhaps someone with a 7200rpm drive can run the software and post the results. If so, don't forget to provide system specs too.

I'd benchmark my 5400rpm drive but my T30 is sans HD (ready for shipping to IBM for a new system board).

Thanks, kj

[Mike-NOAA]

the forum consensus (pls correct me if others don't feel this way):

A) from 4200rpm to 5400rpm: BIG HDD performance gain
B) from 5400rpm to 7200rpm: Smaller noticable HDD performance gain

The 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM disks tested by Tom's had 8Mb caches, while the 4200 RPM disk had a 2 Mb cache. That could cause the especially large difference noticed between the 4200 RPM and 5400 RPM drives.

However, in my experience, EVERY increase in disk speed is noticeable, especially in memory-limited machines, which do more swapping to disk. With the huge number of features added to programs and operating systems these days, most laptops are memory-limited to some degree. I'd venture to say that any with less than 1Gb are seeing the disk as a frequent bottleneck.

[entertrust]

Can anyone tell me how much of a jump in performance you get from a 7200rpm drive vs. a 5400?

How does it compare to the jump from 4200 to 5400?

Thanks, kj

Makes all the difference in the world. Most of the time people will have a beefy system (i.e. processor, RAM, etc.) and a 4200rpm HD. The rotational speed of the hard drive makes or breaks ur system. The processor usually has to wait on the HD. 7200rpm drive and have never looked back my friend!

[lfeagan]

Okay, I benchmarked my new IBM T42p. I took all of the usual precautions such as disabling the hard drive suspend for shock protection, disabling all anti-virus soffware, having a fresh bootup before any testing.

My setup can easily be seen by looking at my profile below. So, without further ado, the graph:

[HarryWild]

This may give the scientific answers to your questions on 4200, 5400 and 7200 rpm notebook drives from Tom's Hardware Website.


http://www.tomshardware.com/includes99/ ... index.html

[HarryWild]

Try this link:

http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20030813/index.html

[HarryWild]

Still another link for even more info from Tom's hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20031031/index.html

[taphil]

Here's the Hitachi 5400rpm drive. I didn't bother to reboot, turn off ASP, exit programs, or disable NAV and NPF.



My analysis concludes that at the same % of HDD capacity, the 7200rpm drive is ~10% faster in terms of througput, as is the average throughput. Seek time is almost 20% faster.

[HarryWild]

kjarrett,

To answer your question in general terms not taken cache differences and other factors - a matter of the difference between the speeds.

Can anyone tell me how much of a jump in performance you get from a 7200rpm drive vs. a 5400?

7200-5400 is 1800. Then dividing it into 5400 or 1,800/5400 or 33%


How does it compare to the jump from 4200 to 5400?

5400-4200 is 1200 Then dividing it into 4200 or 1200/4200 or 28%


Now look at a move from 4200 to 7200.

7200-4200 is 3000 Then dividing it into 4200 or 3000/4200 or 71%

Each figure represents the performances increase gained in doing a switch from one drive to another!

Hope this helps. It my own way of give you a figure to judge!

[taphil]

RPM does not scale linerally to actual speed and performance increases.