320 GB 5400 faster than 160 GB 7200 RPM hard drive?

another post got me interested. all other things being equal, will a 320 GB 5400 RPM drive be faster or slower than a 160 GB 7200 RPM hard drive? best answer would include HDTUNE results!!! post your specs! here is my hitachi 160 GB 7200 hard drive.

 

Yes the density of the DATA w/be almost double the 160GB.

 

yes, but let's see some HDtune posts, shall we? i'd like to see what people get in real world results... of couse it's not totally a fair test, but let's see if the 320 GB 5400 people just waste the 160 GB 7200 users!

 

It would be expected that the 320GB HD will be quite faster, but I would also like so see a comparison.

EDIT: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=205899

Results from a WD Scorpio 320GB 5400rpm. Your 7200rpm drive has a slightly better access time, although transfers and burst rates are higher on the Scorpio.

 

This is interesting, as I have the 160 GB 7200 RPM drive and might upgrade. Would a 200 GB 7200 RPM drive be faster than the 320 GB 5400 RPM?

 

there is a 200 GB 7200 rpm vs. 320 GB 5400 rpm comparison in the link provided by smoothtofu... pretty close, but the 320 wins by a bit in performance, and by a lot (obviously) in space at basically the same price. i'll have to remember this when i get my next laptop.

 

Yeah, I'm really pissed. I had an option for a bigger and faster drive (320 GB), but I thought the 160 GB 7200 RPM would be faster, so I paid $50 more for the 160 GB, and now I find out it's slower and has less space.

 

True but WAIT ! ! !

I thought I heard there will be a 500gb scorpio sooner or later!

And hitachi is supposed to be working on some magically new drive I heard... no clue though what it will be...


GAAAH I just bought a 5K250 hitachi drive...
Hitachi is so easy to understand... 5 or 7 before the K mean 5400 or 7200 rpm and the number after is the size
Seagate is cool too like 7200.2 is 7200rpm and .2 means SATA
But on scorpios its diff...

but according to tomshardware charts I compared my 250gig to the 250gb scorpio and to the momentus... mine wins in most of the categories

And its one of the best size/price ratio like the2nd or 3rd maybe 4th... but I may believe that the 320gb scorpio may be the best size/price

 

yes, 500 GB would be sweet, but probably won't have any greater performance than the 320, because it will have a third platter, and therefore no greater data density than the 320. that being said, i would probably get a 500 GB 5400 over a 200 GB 7200 if they were comparable for speed!!!

 

This graph is very helpful, in determining speed of harddrives:



K-TRON

 

My old OEM WD 5400RPM 80gb HD:



My new upgraded Hitachi 7k200 100gb 7200RPM HD.

 

Would a 250GB 5400rpm be on par with a 160GB 7200rpm?
If so I'd sell my 160g/7200k in my Thinkpad and snag a 250gb drive.

 

The 500GB Hitachi has 3 platters as opposed to 2, and so the drive itself, while being 2.5 inches wide, has a height of 12mm as opposed to the standard 9mm. Therefore it does not fit in most laptops. Apparently it is mainly intended for Blade servers and desktop computers with smaller form factors. Also, that drive will cost more than the current 320GB HDD.

 

Sorry. Something i dont understand about this.
How can a 5400 harddisk be faster than a 7200 just because it's bigger?

 

There is more data in the same amount of space. To over simplfy, the head travel over 1 inch of disk one has more info in the same amount of space so even though slower it picks up more data.

 

You can go tech with me But does this also count if it comes to gaming?
My brain says that it should be able to retrieve a certain amount of data, faster than the 5400.

 

Think about it for a moment:

- the sustained transfer rate is determined by how fast bits pass under the r/w head. So, a higher capacity disc will have more bits per mm, therefore for a given rotational speed it'll be faster.

- the random seek time (ie. how long it takes to locate an arbitrary file on the disc) will depend on how long it takes for the head to move, and how long it takes for the relevant data to pass under the head. On average it'll take half a revolution once the head has located the correct track, so a 7200rpm disc will be quicker than a 5400 rpm, whatever the density.

So, which one is faster depends on the application. A 5400rpm high capacity disc will be theoretically faster if you're transferring a small number of big files, and a 7200rpm disc will be faster if you're transferring lots of small ones.

 

One can optimise the random seek time even further for 5400 drives. For a 320 GB drive, create two partitions. Minimise the switchings between the two partitions during use (ie, you would generally use either partition 1 or partition 2, but not at the same time all that often). This will minimise the distance the head moves during use.

 

See now theese last two postings make sence. Thanks alot

By the way. Has anybody made a comparison of HD speeds?

 

this hard drive information (if it isn't already there) should be in a sticky. that way, nobody would ever read it. lol... i think most people assume (including me in the not so distant past) that a faster rpm hard drive will always be faster, which is not always the case. good to know when purchasing a laptop.

sunee- i think k-tron's post #10 has a comparison of several hard drives...

 

Note that when you partition the HDD, keep in mind that there are two platters, so there actually need 4 80GB partitions if you want to cut up each platter in half (each platter has a read head). Or use other partitioning schemes to optimise even further.

 

hi all I have a x61, 4GB Ram, running vista ultimate x86, I purchased the Hitachi 200Gb 7200 and loved it, a huge improvement over the 160GB 5400 that came with the notebook, then i bought the WD 320GB 5400, and used acronis to copy the image across and all my data, and used it for a week.

startup was 20 secs slower than before, outlook (i have a 1.2 gb mail file and open 2-3 other .pst files around 500-800 mb each) was MUCH slower.

I watch a lot of tv series on divx file, and opening WM player with these 350-700mb files was MUCH slower.

my observations only, suffice to say, have reverted to my Hitachi 200Gb 7200 , and bought a small usb2 case for the WD 320 GB 5400, a perfect match.

 

I'm surprised that no proud SSD owner has jumped into this thread to rain on everyone's party.

 

SSD is still to expensive. But yeah. checked the #10 comparison, and i'm glad i choice the fastest 100gb harddisk. Can always go bigger later.

 

All the heads move together, though, and I can't think of any reason why the drive should do anything other than stripe data across all four platters at once. So, you were right first time: two (or more) partitions, each of which will form a concentric ring on the disc's surface, and as long as you're accessing data within one of them, seek time should be reduced.

The outermost partition should be the fastest, of course. I wonder if that's where a default Windows installation ends up, or whether it would actually yield a worthwhile benefit to repartition a drive with a small-ish partition right at the END of the available capacity to put the OS on?

 

Right.. so this is the 160GB hard drive from nc8000 in sig.

5400RPM but I'm pretty sure it's a single platter drive.

 

I have a question...

I bought a Hitachi 5K250 last sunday...

Is this drive any good? lol I cant test it since HP still has to send me my new Recovery discs

I thought that they maybe had a 7200rpm 250gb... because I was confused when I bought it at BB... it was about the same price as Newegg... but I thought that maybe neweggs version was 7200rpm

Will the m15x house the 500gb one? I dont think so though

And I cant return my Hitachi anyways Or can I?