5400 vs. 7200 RPM?

Dear All,

I have a question concerning RPM. Will it affect your laptop booting time if you have 7200 RPM?? Right now I am preparing to buy a new laptop in China! But all I can see from Asus brand are all 5400RPM...

Could someone explain where are the differences between 5400 and 7200 RPM?


Thanks

 

A 7200rpm drive is usually going to be faster across the board than a 5400rpm drive for the same 2.5" form factor. But take a look at these drive benchmarks compared to decide for yourself: Benchmarks 2009 2.5? Mobile Hard Drive Charts

 

Also consider that the higher the drive capacity, the higher the performance because the platter doesn't have to move as far to bring data to the read/write heads. Data density is just as important as drive speed.

 

It's very easy upgrading yourself. Just buy the laptop you want and if the HDD performance isn't good enough you can replace it.

 

Rotational speed is not as important as it used to be now that platters have such high data density and over the years hard drives have increasingly tended towards being smaller. As Tchamber said its less work having to realign the read/write head.

This is just me personally but if you want speed then go either Momentus XT or get on the SSD bandwagon. In a HDD these days I prefer the low noise, low power consumption and cheap variety, especially in a laptop.

 

While that is true to a certain extend, there's an opposite effect going for drives over 500GB. Especially 750GB driver are performing less than 500GB drives, even though there areal density is higher.

Then there's also the fact that one brand 500GB 5400rpm drive can be significantly faster than the other brand 500GB 5400rpm drive.

 

This is inaccurate. You are talking about aerial density, which does improve performance as density goes up. However, rotational speed still has a MUCH greater impact on the performance of a drive, especially in seek times and random read/write operations.

A 160GB 7200rpm drive will out-perform a 500GB 5400rpm drive, simply because of higher rotational speeds.

 

I can't fully agree there. For example: a WD5000BEVT will beat a Seagate 7200.2 160GB in most situations.

Even a 500GB Seagate 7200.4 has a tough time beating the WD5000BEVT.

 

If some manufacturer's 7200 rpm drives are faster than another then we should be comparing comparable models not rotational speeds. Plus it's all about read/write speeds unless you are after responsiveness then you should go for an SSD.

 

Hey Phil, what about Samsung 640GB HM640JJ vs well known 500gb like Hitachi 7k500 (will not consider WD atm to many failures at my end). I need one more 2.5hdd, was thinking on the samsung, but been very happy with my current 7k500, just wondering if you statement applies here.

 

You'll get less battery life with 7200 RPM. What about a SSD drive?

 

I stand corrected. You are right. I misundestimated the impact of aerial density.

 

I haven't had my hands on the HM640JJ. Going by the AS-SSD File Copy results I'd say it's a fast drive. As fast as the 7K500.

Between 7K500 and HM640JJ, I don't think you'll notice a difference.

 

Incorrect, that advantage was overcome long ago. Recent tests indicate no noticeably impact on battery life; and 7200 RPM drives out perform 5400 RPM drive in every significant way.

In fact, this discussion is really a no-brainer since 5400 RPM drives are for all practical purposes obsolete. I would purchase one only if maximum storage capacity per GB was my only concern. Besides, even moderately priced computers nowadays have moved beyond that speed.

As for an SSD as a replacement, they're not yet practical at this time. Their price is still to high, and their capacity is still way too low to make them a practicable alternative. Look to them only if speed is your most important factor, and price is no object.

 

Most 7200rpm drives do consume a bit more than their 5400rpm counterparts. Differences can be small though and it depends on what hard drive we're talking about.

For power measurements: Charts, benchmarks 2009 2.5? Mobile Hard Drive Charts, Power Requirement Idle

The influence on battery life is larger for small power efficient notebooks.

 

Jesus, for some reason I laught on this.

Hey, thanks for the input Phill. In fact my post was just to point out that 7200 drives consumes more power then 5400. Basic as that.

 

That isn't entirely true though. There are several 7200rpm drives that consume less than 5400rpm drives.

As with the speed, it depends on what models we're talking about.

 

With a program like PerfectDisk Professional to completely defrag a hard drive the booting times between a (good) 5400 RPM drive and a (great) 7200 RPM drive can be greatly minimized.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-c-b-defrag-c-x-defraggler-perfectdisk10.html


Where a 7200 RPM drive dominates though is in actual throughput (work).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...ba-mk3252gsx-vs-hitachi-7k500-real-world.html



Effective partitioning can have a huge impact on performance too.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-hitachi-7k500-benchmark-setup-specifics.html



With the above partitioning scheme, using PerfectDisk Professional 11 and a Momentus XT Hybrid 500GB HD, I approached (and surpassed at least one) SSD too in file copy tests. (Actually the same results with my Hitachi 7K500 too).

What is even more interesting is that without partitioning (and maybe without PD too?) my setup offered a greatly improved throughput over a 'standard' install on the identical (500GB XT and 7K500) HDD's. Scoring 162 and 159 respectively - both higher than the lowest performing SSD).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...le-copy-result-hdds-ssds-easy-comparison.html

 

Yeah I forgot to put the word *some* there

 

Also as htwingnut found out last night, updating your BIOS and chipset drivers make a significant difference in "speed" of a hard drive.

 

I disagree. While there is still a significant cost difference between SSDs and spindle drives. The advantages are definitely worth the difference in price, for many people. A couple of years ago it is true that the only ones who could justify an ssd were those for whom "price is no object", e.g., $1000 for a 32GB SSD.

I would say if you are a person who "requires" 500GB for all their video files and such, then HDD is the only way to go. However, if you don't store, or create, video, then it's actually hard to use up a significant chunk of a 256GB drive. In which case the cost of ssd is definitely worth the benefits (I'm talking about 20 sec Win 7 bootup, nearly instantaneous startup for Word, Excel, Eclipse..., Winzip run phenomenally fast ).

 

Oscar2,

You don't need an SSD for 'nearly instaneous startup of Word, Excel...'.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/6897187-post25.html

 

I meant platter density, not drive capacity. A single 500gb platter has higher data density than a two 375gb platters. This can sometimes partially explain why certain higher capacity drives of the same type and class perform worse than their lower capacity counterparts but...

Yes, theres more to a drive than rotational speed and platter density. Actuator head design will vary between brands and also plays a hugely important role in seek time. Just like any complex machine, the system only works well if all its constituent parts work well in unison.

That said, HDDs have been trending towards being physically smaller with higher density platters. At the same time they are getting faster too but every now and then, sheer design chops are responsible for something exceptional and unexpected. These days the 2TB Caviar Black is not only in the ballpark of the enterprise class Velociraptors: its probably fairer to say that the Caviar is kicking in the Raptor's door and making a grab for its speed king trophy through the letterbox.

I can't comment on the validity or methodology of this test since it is purely anecdotal. However my anecdotal experience has been the complete opposite. I recently had to fresh install Windows 7 on my Dell desktop. It came with 2x Seagate Barracudas in RAID-0 and I replaced one of the drives with a Vertex 2 thus breaking the RAID volume and necessitating a fresh install. I was never able to 30 second boot with 2x HDDs in RAID-0 (couldn't even do it in under a minute) and the unpleasant task of installing all Windows updates took vastly longer on the RAIDed HDDs. Not to mention the noise of 2x 3.5" drives ticking away as their head actuators constantly realign themselves. But you already know that I'm a convert to SSD technology and what I am doing right now without a testbed setup is simply preaching to the perverted. I don't expect to change anyone's minds but in a sort of futile endorsement, maybe its worth pointing out that it worked for me? <shrugs>

 

I was also talking about areal density. 375GB platters tend to perform worse than 250GB platters, even though the areal density is higher.

PS. 500GB platters don't exist yet for notebook HDDs.

 

Does anyone know why the 375gb platters tend to perform worse? I mean is it a manufacturing thing or are they just getting put into drives that suck or what? I mean are they just putting them in drives where the acutator heads are qualified for 250gb platters or something? I can't see any other reasons...

 

It's true, you don't (I actually thought you were going to point out either Superfetch, or else using a Ram disk). But as far as HD optimizations go, it's hard to imagine cost effectively setting one up to be faster than an ssd. I was mainly just addressing Krane's point that: "ssd's are not yet either practicable or cost effective".

As an aside, I am actually very interested in the link you provided. I have an older 1.3Ghz Vaio w/ 1.8" 80GB 4800 rpm pata drive that is just simply booting and executing everything as if walking through molasses, even after an xP reinstall. It is not worth spending $400-$600 for an ssd upgrade on this oldster. Do your recommendations apply to XP or do they assume the win7 optimizations?

(otherwise this baby's going over to Linux)

 

I think Tilleroftheearth brought up a good point in that defragging and optimizing your hard drive is one of the best (and cheapest) ways to increase disk/system performance regardless of spindle speed.

 

Hayte,

It has to do with the heads being not able to stop/lock onto the tracks they're directed to on the higher density platters quickly enough (compared to lower density platters) and basically overshooting and having to re-aquire the proper position requested of them.

I have seen this most obviously when I moved from the 7K200 Hitachi and was never really happy with the 'response' of any HD with a higher capacity until I bought a 7K500 (although I still think the 7K200 felt 'snappier', but definitely not faster in throughput).

The combination of a ridiculously large cache (32MB), 4GB SLC nand and a 7200 RPM spindle speed that cumulates in the Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid is the most effective example of 'masking' the higher platter density performance pitfalls that all higher capacity notebook drives still face (640GB, 750GB, etc.).

There is an online article (Toms Hardware???) about this issue, but I can't track it now.

I would say the optimizations are worth it even on that system (but don't expect the same, absolute results). What I would also highly recommend is eBoostr with a spare fast USB key. The system should feel like night and day.

Btw, how much RAM do you have (or, can you put) in that system?

 

It has 1/2GB soldered down and 2GB plugged in. I believe that's probably the max as Sony originally spec'd it at 1.5GB max (Its about 4yrs old).

I'll look into eboostr. Would it be better to use it with an sd card than a usb key?

 

I haven't gotten into the details myself. tiller might be right, I don't know.

There might be an explanation in SR's WD7500BPVT review.
Western Digital Scorpio Blue Review (750GB WD7500BPVT) | StorageReview.com

 

Oscar2,

If you use it primarily on the desktop, it is easier to have a faster (and probably cheaper) USB key sticking out. If you want something you can move around easily, the SD card is a good option - if its fast enough to actually speed up the system, overall.

I have used eBoostr with probably the worst ExpressCard SSD ever made: the Lexar 16GB ExpressCard SSD. While it took forever for eBoostr to populate it's cache (~14GB or so), once done it did give a noticeable boost to the VAIO it was in (with 8GB RAM, no less).

The best thing to do is use what you have available, download a trial of eBoostr, use it normally for a week or so (so that it can fully populate the cache you allow it) and see if its something you can't live without.

Also, with 2.5GB of RAM I would recommend Win7 too (if you can get it cheap enough - $30 student prices) just for SuperFetch (along with eBoostr too).

Good luck.

 

Well, maybe this. He does point out that we have all become so accustomed to 512 byte sectors that maybe our performance criteria is skewed against 4K sector disks?

 

Thanks, I'll give Win7 a try. I actually have a spare one laying around here someplace...

I didn't even consider it because I assumed it imposed more overhead than XP on such a small cpu and memory.

 

no this is false you are mistaken reseach this better.

In almost no way but access time will a 160 gb 7200 rpm hd outperform a 500 gb 5400 rpm one.

Were talking a huge difference as well

a 500 gb hd is more than 3 times the size. 7200 vs 5400 is 50% more. the density will make this drive so much faster its ridiculous. rpm is just the speed the thing is spinning around not how much data the head is reading. The head on a 500 gb hd is reading more than three times as much data per spin. This is pretty basic

there is actually almost no way a 160 gb 7200 rpm hd will be faster other than the factt its so much smaller it has far less data on it, so random access is faster because the directory is so much smaller.

but the truth is? Its actually slower even in that its slower in every single way.

 

there is no logical reason it should. This must be planned by the hard drive manufacturers. No size ceiling they are reaching at all there are already 2tb 10000 rpm drives for desktops they just keep getting faster.

They are releasing the 750 gb laptop drives in batches of slow ones first perhaps.

Its possible all hds will suddenly get slow, and they sell fast ones with nand and slow ones without.

Its marketing

 

It's a bit too much of a coincidence to me that both WD7500BPVT and Seagate 7200.5 perform less than their 500GB counterparts.

If Seagate and WD were able to change it now, I think they would. Maybe they need some more time to optimize these disks.