Much difference between 5400/7200rpm drives?

[mellondust]

Am I going to notice much difference between a 5400rpm or 7200 rpm hdrive if my mobo only supports ata 66. Any noise or heat issues that are a problem. It is a $20 difference for me and I am really needing the extra $20 unless there is a huge difference. Thanks.

 

[Stealth1024]

Absolutely go for the 7200RPM drive!

 

[JDJ]

Most hard drive transfer rates are still below the theoretical max of the ATA66 as far as I know. I added a 7200 rpm drive to my old p3 44bx-2 mobo and I noticed a difference for the better.

-John

 

[MoleX]

about 1800rpm


now what do I win?

 

[veryape]

Yea, there is definitely quite a big difference between 5400 and 7200 rpm drives. It's definitely noticable. I'd without a doubt go for the 7200, it's worth spending the extra cake, unless of course you're saving for a heart transplant or an abortion for your woman or something.

All you politically correct freaks out there get off my back, it was a joke.

 

[Furyline]

<< about 1800rpm


now what do I win?
>>


LOL

Yes you will notice a difference, but if money is short or something, you could use a 5400 as a storage drive or something.
So, yes the 7200 rpm is faster, will take less time, and if time is money, then it is definitely worth the $20.

Mike

 

[Kingofcomputer]

see the hd spec.
the real transfer rate - to/from media, sustained OD, sustained ID of 7200rpm are 25% more than 5400rpm of the same series.
assume the price difference is 10-15%, you pay 10-15% more and get 25% more real transfer rate, isn't it a good deal?

it's not wise to buy 5400rpm for just $10-20 saving. even for just mp3 storage, don't you want to play/copy/write the mp3 files as fast as possible? unless you're building an extremely cheap system, you could consider buying 5400rpm.

check hot deals forum, there are often hot deals on 7200rpm hd, the price is even lower than same size 5400rpm.

 

[BFG10K]

Definitely get a 7200 RPM board. There is a significant and noticeable speed difference between it and a 5400 RPM HD.

 

[Duvie]

I agree extremely noticeable right off the bat...

Now if you were asking ATA33/66/100 then that would be a different questions...This seems to be a big marketing scam as most of the top of the line ata100's barely get sustained rates over ATA33 levels...No 3 times the performance from ATA33 to ATA100...

Just though I would throw that in...

 

[Darkhawk28]

Yeah, it's worth the extra couple of bucks... especially during longer hard drive activities.

 

[cuteybunny]

i'd say go for 5400 if you are cheap and want to save a little $$$ but if you're arent go for the faster one it worth extra money well spend.
sisoft bench for fastest 5400 is about 18900-21000
for 7200 rpm ranges from 22,000-29000
there maybe not much differenes but a little extra speed is good imho
now if you talking 7200 rpm vs 10,000 rpm the gap would be bigger of 2800 rpm differences.

 

[mellondust]

Thanks for all the great advice! One remaning question is there any noise or heat factors. The heat issue is not that big a deal, I have good cooling in my case, but a noisy hard drive is just irritating.

 

[LukFilm]

Definitely 7200 rpm. However, I also use 5400 rpm (60GB) which is GREAT for storage, especially for the price ($50).

 

[veryape]

Actually the 7200 is a lot more quiet than the 5400 rpm drives. Usually the slower the drive the louder they are.

 

[Huma]

I'm most likely going with a 5400rpm maxtor for the quiet and the cool factor.

Also remember, that if you're going from a smaller drive to a much larger one, you'll see speed benefits just from platter density.

with a 5400, load times will be slightly longer (8 seconds vs 6?), and sustained transfer will be slower, but consider how often you'll actually be pushing the drive to it's peak. Do you regularly transfer huge files around your system? The bottleneck on most cd to hd copies will be the cd drive.

I want a damn quiet case, so the slower drive with less heat also lets me lessen the amount of case cooling I need.

Choose whichever makes sense for your applications. If the price difference is small, try not to let that be the deciding factor.

 

[techwanabe]

I'll chime in... When I built my puter over a year ago, I bought a 7,200 rpm WD hard drive. It's so quite you can barely hear it at all. At my office, most of the older computers have the slower hard drives and they are all loud as heck. It is definitely worth getting a 7,200 rpm drive... at least as your primary. My home PC has a secondary drive which is 5,400... I use it for 2nd copies of some files (backup) and storage. My OS and games are on my 7,200 where speed is more critical.

 

[CraigRT]

<< with a 5400, load times will be slightly longer (8 seconds vs 6?), and sustained transfer will be slower, but consider how often you'll actually be pushing the drive to it's peak >>



I vowed at one point to never buy 5400RPM again... hell, I am even considering U160 SCSI 10K RPM Quantum drives... 5400 is a waste of time IMO.. anything I can get extra speed in, is worth the money.. the hard drive is the modern day system bottleneck.. why make it even more of a bottleneck? always buy the fastest drive you can afford is what I believe in. Every hdd should be 7200 RPM (IDE)!!!!!!

 

[Kingofcomputer]

about 25% difference.

Maxtor D540X
http://www.maxtor.com/products/DiamondMax/diamondmax/DataSheet/D540X133_datasheet.pdf

Data Transfer Speed (MByte/sec, max)
To/From Interface 100/133
To/From Media 43.4
Sustained at OD 35.9
Sustained at ID 17.8

D740X
http://www.maxtor.com/products/DiamondMax/DiamondMaxPlus/DataSheet/D740X_datasheet.pdf

Data Transfer Speed (MByte/sec, max)
To/From Interface 133
To/From Media 54.2 <----------- 25% higher than similar 5400rpm model
Sustained at OD 44.4 <----------- 24%
Sustained at ID 24.2 <----------- 36%