5400 rpm, 7200 rpm....is there really that big of a difference?

[anonymouschris]

about to get a new hard drive...and wanted to get a cheaper/quieter 5400 rpm hard drive as my main hard drive....do you think this is not a good idea. incase it matters, i will be running an athlon 1.2/1.4 ghz system. please let me know.

thanks!

 

[Duvie]

I can tell you from countless upgrades of systems...this is an upgrade you can feel.

Now if it was a question about ata66 or ata100, I would say don't bother...but 7200rpm is a must for main drive. 5400rpm drives are fine for harddrive backup space.

The speed increase I believe constitutes to faster read seek times, which lead to faster access and load up of programs and files.

 

[johndoe52]

I know during startup you'll notice a big difference. Also 7200 rpm drives aren't that loud to me anyways. Also when it'll take longer for programs to load. With the system you'll be running I'd say get a 7200 rpm drive.

 

[anonymouschris]

exactly was i thought and have read before, but when i changed an older system from a 7200 hard drive to a 5400 hard drive, i did not notice a speed difference. i guess in faster systems it makes more of a difference.

 

[CHHASmatroxuser]

You might want to check out Storage Reviews review of the Seagate Barracuda IV, not the fastest 7200 RPM drive, but certainly the most quiet.

 

[whitelight]

i did notice a speed difference between a 5400 and 7200 hd. (i was running an 1ghz athlon). but in terms of noise, i think the ibm 60gxp are very quiet. i can barely hear them when they are seeking. the seeking sound is low, which helps hide it, and it can barely be heard above the noise of my case fans, which are around 30dba. i also have a maxtor diamondmaxplus, and it is considerably louder.

 

[BFG10K]

I never used to think that there was much of a difference until I actually tried a 5400 rpm drive for an extended period of time. The 5400 rpm drive I use on my work computer is a magnitude slower than my 7200 rpm drive that I have at home.

 

[fetuchin]

Huge difference. I'll never use a 5400 unless absolutely necessary.
If you work with really big files and you add raid-0 then you "double-huge" it.