5400 rpm vs. 7200 rpm

Is a 7200 rpm drive really much better than a 5400 rpm drive? I was reading the reviews for the 8510p (comes with a 5400 rpm drive) and the 8510w (comes with a 7200 rpm drive) and got confused.

8510p review: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=169816

HD test:



8510w review: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=149018

HD test:



How come the maximum transfer rate and burst rate are higher on the 5400 rpm drive? And how come the CPU usage so so much lower on the 5400 rpm drive (6.7% vs. 23.4%)?

 

I think performance also depends on the particular drive. I saw benchmarks where 5400rpm HDDs were spanking 7200s. Seems like that Hitachi 5400rpm drive is simply better than the Seagate 7200rpm, assuming the same conditions (didn't read the articles.. going off the pics).

 

The screenies look like they've been taken from different operating systems - that might have something to do with it. I upgraded from 5400rpm to 7200rpm and the difference in speed was quite noticeable. Especially when I reinstalled an OS, I installed about 20% faster. If you don't mind spending a bit extra, I say go for it - it's worth it.

 

you should understand that if the person is running anything in the background, that will affect the transfer rates.

also, in general, higher capacity hds are on par with lower capacity 7200 rpm hds. e.g. 250gb 5400 rpm is about equal in speed to the 160gb 7200 rpm.

also, also, that seagate drive might be using perpendicular technology that i believe is faster (don't quote me on this)

 

I read somewhere, can't find it now, that there are many factors besides disk speed. Data density (more is better), cache size (more is better) and caching functionality all play a part assuming they have the same interface. When I had a Mac, I noticed a quicker boot time. With other operating sytems, the advantages are not so clear from a casual observor's (me) standpoint. I went with a Seagate Momentus 7200.1 on my latest machine.

 

Does setting a HD to performance mode affect its speed? Does hard drive speed affect anything other than load time in a game?

 

Yeah I'd also like to know the answer to that question since I just recently set the HD mode to "performance" in my laptop's BIOS I was wondering if that was going to really give my Hitachi 7k200 some extra performance?

 

I just upgraded from a Seagate 5400 to the Hitachi 7200 and man is my system way faster. I'm talking night and day. My hard drive no longer thrashes constantly and programs pop up on my screen instantly. Never going back to 5400 again

 

Also, how much is actually available on the hard drive. Let's say you have 2x100GB HD, one of them is a 5400rpm and the other 7200rpm. Let's say that the 5400rpm has 90GB available and the 7200rpm has only 10GB. I'm quite sure that the slower hard drive would perform better in this case.

Does that make any sense?

 

since you are talking about drives in 8510 series. I got my 8510p with 120GB 7200rpm drive and it is great. But II can not compare to 5600 because I never used them.

Here is the screenshot


Does it make any difference because I tested it on battery?

 

I did indeed run my test on Vista without anything going on but the standard system stuff (AV, firewall, temp monitors, HP programs, etc).

I also remember someone saying that Greg's HDTune results were way low, but either way...

 

The new (perpendicular) 5200rpm HDs are slowly gaining over the 7200rpm since the head doesn't have to travel much to get the information. There's a plan of integrating SSD and HD together to get both fast loading and increased and affordable storage.

 

I think all the new 2.5" HDDs use perpendicular recording in order to increase the data density. 5400rpm HDDs tend to have slightly higher data densities than the 7200rpm HDDs which, I presume, is related to the challenge of reading and writing the data. As a result the maximum disk data transfer rates for the two speeds tend to be similar. 7200rpm scores, however, with slightly quicker access times because there's a shorter delay while waiting for the data to reach the head.

This article at Tom's Hardware compares two of the latest Hitachi HDDs. However, WD and Samsung now have 320GB 5400rpm HDDs which further raise the best available performance at 5400rpm.

John

 

Just had a quick though.. Are we gonna see hdds with 2 heads per plate coming soon???

 

I doubt it - there's a limited amount of space inside one of those drives and changing the standard size wouldn't be easy. If it were easily done it would have been done already. The trend seems to be towards solid state for fast access and HDD for capacity.

John

 

Keep in mind that there have been complaints about the 7200rpms' running hot. For example, if you check out the Asus C90s review, you'll notice that at one part the author makes a comparison between the warm and "comfortable" 5400rpm, and how his colleague complained of the "uncomfortable" heat coming from his 7200rpm.

Just something to keep in mind if the HD of your lappy is positioned where it's in contact with your body.

 

Can't say about that myself, but my 100GB hitachi 7200 rpm drive runs no more hot than my old 4200 rpm drive I replaced.

 

SATA 150 is not slow. You don't "need" SATA 300 to enjoy the performance boost a 7200rpm drive offers over a 5400rpm, all things being equal.

 

I agree. Even ATA66 is enough for 99% of todays laptop drives. SATA300 or SATA150 does not make the slightest difference.

Tested a 250GB samsung.

transfer speeds comparable to the best 7200 drives. Quite impressive.

 

So, larger the capacity of the drive, better the performance because the data is more "dense" and closer?

 

only transfer rates, not access times

 

I really wish you knew what you were talking about because then people wouldn't have to come back and correct you.

Sata 150 is NOT SLOW. There is currently NO Notebook HDD that can even take full advantage of the SATA150 interface. I.e. no notebook can get it's xfer rate up to 1.5Gb/s. You'll have some people with RAID getting wierd #'s sometimes but it's impossible for a 7200rpm notebook HDD to hit 1.5Gb/s atm.

You don't NEED SATA300, please don't buy into this hype. Research facts people! Everyone has an opinion, to which they are entitled, but they are often wrong.

 

How about the affect on battery life? This whole discussion has revolved around performance. But for notebooks, battery life is one of those important things.

Also is there any conclusive evidence for the amount of heat generated in actual measured temperature? I've only read a bunch of articles/posts saying things like "unbearably hot", "no noticeable difference". Those words to me don't mean anything because it depends on the person.

And comparing the HDDs used in those HP 8510 machines shouldn't mean anything. Scientifically, there is no control when one machine has a HDD @ 100GB and the other is @ 160GB. To have a real controlled experiment you would need the same capacity, and same cache memory at least.

At least check out the following link http://www.barefeats.com/5472.html, they actually use 2 HDDs made by the same manufacturer, with the same capacity, and same cache size, but one is 7200, and one is 5400.

 

Obviously Eurocom has bought into the marketing and hasn't really researched the true facts behind the technology