Seagate momentus 7200.5 (750GB) vs WD Scorpio Blue 5400 (1TB) as a secondary next to SSD

Which one of these would work better as a secondary drive next to a SSD? I'm most likely going to get a Samsung 830 (512GB) as my main drive someday.

I can't decide between these two as my secondary:
Seagate Momentus 7200.5 (750GB)
WD Scorpio Blue 5400 (1TB)

What are the pros and cons between the two as a secondary drive? Obviously Seagate has a faster spin speed, but that doesn't tell much about the actual speed difference. Scorpio then again has higher capacity which I'd of course prefer, but if the performance difference is notable, then I'd rather take that.

I'm currently leaning towards the Scorpio, but I want to make sure that the Seagate isn't a lot faster. I can't really find a comparison. It's going to be in the ODD bay if that makes any difference.


Also a bonus question, what are the differences between Seagate's 7200.4 and 7200.5?

 

Why the 7200 RPM Seagate of course.

In my view anything below that is useful solely as storage or back up. Its just too darn slow for much else.

 

I have similar configuration; Samsung 128GB SSD + 1TB WD 5400RPM. I think the WD is all right for speed, around 100MB sequential read and write. However 5400 RPM still have noticeable spinning noise, the 7200RPM probably would be disturbing.

 

Since you have an SSD, the 5400RPM won't bottleneck you

 

It counts on your workflow and usage. If you plan constant access, like placing the user files on the HDD, the 7200 rpm drive or even a hybrid drive is the better choice. Since you are planning to replace the optical drive I doubt you plan on just occasional access just for backup............

 

I hear opinions to both ways. Some people think 5400 is too slow, but some people think it's good enough. However, different drives of the same RPM can have a lot of performance differences. Also I've heard that the 1TB drive has much higher density so that also makes it faster.

I had a single 7200RPM Seagate as a main drive on my previous laptop, and I wasn't bothered by it at all. I think the fan either kept noise above what I could hear, or then it's just me being used to somewhat noisy environment.

Depends what counts as constant. I may place some files on it, I don't quite know yet how I'll use it because I'm used to cramming everything on a single HDD. I'm planning to start a Youtube gameplay commantary channel, so I'm most likely going to be using it for a lot of video (and sound?) files every day.

 

5400 RPM drives went with the way of the dodo bird - get the 7200 RPM drive.

Especially when paired with an SSD, the 5400 RPM drive will drag the performance of the system as a whole down and will be a very jarring user experience when using the SSD or the HDD portions of the storage subsystem.

While the video/sound use your system is destined for needs the highest capacity drive you can get - settling for the 5400 RPM drive would be a regret I would have every time I turned the system on - and I would not be getting any better battery life, nor a quieter running system vs. the 7200 RPM option.

Good luck.