7200rpm does NOT necessarily consume more power

"5400rpm drives offer more battery life, while 7200 ones offer faster load times..."

"I heard it's a 30min difference in battery life"

"One thing to note about 7200 RPM drives is the extra heat it generates"

I'm sick of hearing comments like this without any basis in fact. These are ALL FALSE. Or at least not true all the time.

Let's take a look at two popular hard drives from the same manufacturer - Western Digital.

Code:

WD3200BEVT 5400rpm
[b]Current Requirements[/b]
	5 VDC
	Read/Write	500 mA
	Idle	400 mA
	Standby	50 mA
	Sleep	20 mA
[b]Power Dissipation[/b]
	Read/Write	2.50 Watts
	Idle	0.85 Watts
	Standby	0.25 Watts
	Sleep	0.10 Watts

Code:

WD3200BEKT 7200rpm
[b]Current Requirements[/b]
	5 VDC
	Read/Write	500 mA
	Idle	400 mA
	Standby	50 mA
	Sleep	30 mA
[b]Power Dissipation[/b]
	Read/Write	2.50 Watts
	Idle	0.85 Watts
	Standby	0.25 Watts
	Sleep	0.15 Watts

No difference except for Sleep power consumption. And you know when your laptop's hard drive is in Sleep mode (different from the laptop's sleep mode)? Basically never.

In fact, if you get a Samsung 500GB 5400rpm drive and compare it to a 320GB 7200rpm drive, you'll find it consumes more power, outputs more heat and vibrates more because it has three platters, not two.

Thank you for reading

 

I don't believe manufacturer's specification. I'd rather look for real life tests.

Laptopmag video run down test:
WD Scorpio Black (7200rpm) 2 hours 31 minutes
WD Scorpio Blue (5400rpm) 2 hours 42 minutes

http://www.laptopmag.com/advice/expert/are-ssds-worth-the-money.aspx?page=7

If you want a more power efficient 7200rpm drive take the Seagate 7200.3 320GB.

 

they can make 7200rpm drives as efficient as they want. just take that most efficient 7200rpm drive and let it run at 5400rpm and it, guess what: it saves power. spinning at higher speeds means more power consumation.

you can claim otherwise, and a high end expensive new 7200rpm disk can beat an older cheap 5400rpm disk in power usage, still, any 7200rpm disk can get beaten by it's own brother on 5400rpm. this will always be true.

 

Logic thinking, i like it And i agree!

 

There are so many variables. While a 7200rpm drive may use more peak power, it may do so for a shorter time than its 5400rpm brother.

Really, the difference in power consumption by current generation drives is minimal to nothing. Any discussion about it is really academic.

 

According to Tomshardware (who have been putting up pretty legit reviews) - The WD3200BEKT's kid "brother" -> WD3200BEVT consumes more (max) power when R/Wing than the BEKT (3.26W vs 4.20W). So, as Phil said - Manufacturer's specs mean nothing, and what matters, is real-life tests.

 

The Seagate 7400.4 looks like it might have the one of the lowest power consumptions out there if the official spec sheets are to be believed.