Test result: 7200RPM drive doesn't mean more heat, less runtime

I'm a new user of a Hitachi Travelstar 80GB 7200RPM laptop hard drive. I got the drive second hand for $80 shipped. Since there's always a debate going back and forth about whether or not the upgrade would increase heat and diminish runtime, I tested the difference under controlled conditions and found that it made no difference in battery life.

The bootup time is noticeably faster and the benchmark shows a substantial difference in speed.

The two drives:


Speed change:


You might think there's a battery life penalty for this kind of a gain, but between these two drives, there wasn't any.

Step1:
The laptop battery was fully charged, then the system was booted Windows safe mode.

Step 2:
Power config set to "Always on", power setting adjusted to "never turn off" for HDD and display, set backlight to minimum brightness.

Step 3:
Pull the power cord and observe w/ time lapse camera every 3 minutes. Allow up to +3 minutes for error.

Swap the drives, fully charge battery and repeat the process.

Battery life (error of up to +3min)

-4200RPM = 2h29m
-7200RPM = 2h30m

After reviewing the specs from each drive manufacturer's page, it seems like the power consumption is about the same and the differnece is neglible (fractional watts). To be exact, the 7200RPM uses less power while being accessed.

Toshiba 4200RPM
Start 4.7watts
Seeking 2.6watts
R/W 2.3watts
Idle 0.9watts
Standby 0.25watts
Sleep 0.1watts

Hitachi 7200RPM
Startup (peak, max.) 5.5W
Seek 2.3W
Read 2.0W
Write2.0W
Active idle 1.1W
Low power idle 0.85W
Standby 0.2W
Sleep 0.1W

"low power idle" is when the HDD is just spinning and not being accessed, but the spindle motor power consumption doesn't change as long as the disk is spinning and since the test is concerning the spindle speed, I've concluded getting a faster spindle speed doesn't imply anything from battery consumption perspective.

 

Wow, great testing. Seems very thorough This should help put some people's minds at ease about getting a faster drive.

 

Wow! A very thorough test with all important variables controlled.

This takes care of all but one of the problems with the 7200rpm drives: price, but even that is coming down.

 

How about testing the both drives running Sisoft sandra hard drive benchmark looped?

 

When you're using your laptop the normal way, the time spent idling is the greatest. Running both drives under continuous access is something you won't really see in the real world and it is like testing the fuel economy of a vehicle at WOT @ power peak w/ the wheels loaded on dyno to allow the engine to sustain operation at max horsepower.

 

Instructive test. However, the point is that Toshiba hard drives are one of the hottest and noisiest among those with 4200 and 5400 rpm (ATA). You would anticipate your outcome even by comparing the specs of the both. If you would compare Hitachi to Hitachi you'd probably see the difference in battery life, heat and noise (e.g. I have seen it by comparing Fujitsu 4200 rpm with Fujitsu 5400 rpm).

 

Nice test.

But, is there any truth to the idea that the 120GB and 160GB 5400rpm drives would fall somewhere in the middle of a 5400rpm and 7200rm drive?

Larger platter + perpendicular?

 

Interesting and informative test! I agree with Ivar though, Testing two different drive manufactures may just show the differences between those two drive manufactures. A more interesting test would be testing the 7200 Hitachi vs. the 4200 at the same size.

From your test, one can reasonably conclude that upgrading to a 7200rpm Hitachi vs. a Toshiba 4200rpm drive is recommended as you’ll see no decrease in battery life and an increase in speed. To say this as a general rule, you’d have to test more HD combinations.

Great initiative though. We appreciate your contributions, and any testing like this helps pull back the shroud over some of the existing computing questions always asked.

 

I, too, have one of those drives in my notebook. I haven't noticed any difference in battery life.

 

There is hardly any real difference between hard drives in terms of battery lfe because when they are idle they consume about 1w or even when they are seeking they use <3w and the difference between many notebook hard drives regardless of rotational speeds is fractions of a single watt. The screen, cpu, and dedicated gpu use much more power than notebook hard drives. For example turn off your screen and you get between 1.4 to 2 times more battery life.

Most of the time your hard drive is idle.
Note if you have a faster hard drive it will get the job done quicker and hence leave the hard drive back to idle state where it consumes less power. So the myths that say 7200rpm notebook HD drains battery is unfounded. Lets be generous and say there is a 1w difference between a 7200rpm and 4200rpm subtract the extra time the 4200rpm drive is spent seeking (consumes more power during seeking) compared to 7200rpm and the difference is negligible.

 

I would say my result isn't writing a general rule, rather contradicting a general rule that many believes. Some people automatically think 7200RPM = more power, but as this test has shown, it is not a determining factor in considerable battery life that they believe.

I don't think its uncommon for someone to install a Hitachi 7200RPM to replace a Toshiba, a common OEM supplier for HP.

 

If you're using the laptop to run disk intensive application while on battery then you won't be sitting at idle and there will be a slight difference in battery time although it won't be very much. The Hitachi 7k100 consumes a little over 1W more then the Hitachi 5k100.

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q1/mobile-hdds/index.x?pg=1

http://laptoplogic.com/reviews/detail.php?id=92&part=full&page=8

 

The review from techreport.com is for SATA drives. For the specific Hitachi models, the SATA consumes more power per Hitachi datasheets.

If you're comparing between the two drives from the same review, I'm not sure where you got "a little over 1W". The power difference between them is fractional watts.

Comparing 7K100 & 5K100 respectively, from data taken from the techreport.com review you linked us:

Standby power consumption 0.25W 0.4W
Idle power consumption 0.9W 0.85W
Seek power consumption 2.7W 2.5W
Read/write power consumption 2.3W 2.0W

W/ no access, the difference is mere 50 mW
Read/write difference is where the difference is the greatest at 300mW

Not even close to a full watt.