hardrive question: 7200 or 5400 rpm

[timu]

my friend has a athlon 1700+xp with 128mb ddr pc2100 ram. but he has a 7200rpm ata 133 maxtor 60gb harddrive.

my system is athlon 2000+xp with 256mb ddr pc 2700 ram. but my harddrive is quite old. its maxtor ata 100 5400rpm 40gb harddrive.

i found that when transfering data from harddrive to harddrive, it seems to lot quicker in my friend's system. is it normal?(as he has a supirior harddrive)
except hdd all other hardwares are better in my system..........so can only hdd make this difference?

is this hdd is a bottleneck for my system? should i upgrade it? does it effect in playing games?

 

[johnjkr1]

the jump from 5400 to 7200 can definetly make a difference..especially when booting up or loading levels in a game, etc. Its not necessarily a bottleneck (since once the level is loaded, the hard drive is rarely accessed), just depends on whether you can live with your current speed or not.

 

[timu]

inspite of having more ram and processor speed, why is my system's data trasnsfer rate(from hdd to hdd) is slower than my friend's one?

 

[Bonesdad]

Definately you will note the difference (at least in booting and file xfers). You can one up your friends Hard Drive by getting yourself one of the Western Digital Special Edition with the 8MB cache. I just got one of these and it smoked my 40 GB Maxtor 7200 drive (2mb cache). Can be had pretty reasonably too. You can get a 60 GB drive for 70-80 bucks with rebate (available every week somewhere locally). I got my 80 GB before Xmas for about a buck/GB with sale and rebate...

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: timu
inspite of having more ram and processor speed, why is my system's data trasnsfer rate(from hdd to hdd) is slower than my friend's one?

Because you have a slower drive.

Thorin

 

[johnjkr1]

its just slower..its the same as loading a level in a game...a 7200prm drive will do it quite a bit faster than a 5400...transfer a file, same deal

 

[azkiwi]

another vote for the 8MB cache drive. I have a WD SE and an oler 5400 IBM drive and the lag is very noticeable when I access something on the old drive. Its a worthwhile upgrade and you can take it through your next several mobs and cpu upgrades.

 

[BFG10K]

7200 RPM drives generally feel significantly faster than similar 5400 RPM drives, even for simple Office/internet/emailing work.

 

[Dreadogg]

yea dont even think about purchasing a 5400 RPM drive.

 

[CraigRT]

7200 RPM drives are a fair bit faster.
upgrade your hdd for sure.
hdd is a modern system bottlneck
the faster the hdd, the faster the system runs... no ifs ands or buts. (as long as it's modern like i said )

 

[Mday]

7200rpm gives you a lower random search time.

just wait, get the 10krpm drive that WD is coming out with. it's serial ata.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

7200rpm hd has about 20MB/s more transfer rate than 5400rpm hd.

 

[zephyrprime]

inspite of having more ram and processor speed, why is my system's data trasnsfer rate(from hdd to hdd) is slower than my friend's one?

That stuff hardly matters for hard drive transfers.

 

[AndrewNF]

Here's that 10K RPM Serial ATA drive.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Aside from 5400 vs. 7200, a newer drive has a denser platter and therefore higher sustained transfer rate. For large file transfers a new 80 GB / platter drive will beat most older 20, 40, 60 GB platter drives even if both are 7200 RPM.

Also look at storagereview.com to compare performance, heat, and noise.

 

[Paulson]

7200 RPM drives are leaps and bounds over 5400, especially if you're running windows on the drives in comparison...

 

[AtomicDude512]

Originally posted by: Paulson
7200 RPM drives are leaps and bounds over 5400, especially if you're running windows on the drives in comparison...

Yes, 7200s also help for general tasks in Windows XP Pro (although the 512MB memory helps also...). Besides, 5400s are getting obselete. And for me, game load times are important, but not important enough to spend the $$$ on SCSI.