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    WD Scorpio Blue 320GB vs WD5000BEVT 7200rm. Which is faster?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by t30power, Feb 6, 2009.

  1. t30power

    t30power Notebook Deity

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    t30power, Feb 6, 2009
    #1
  2. Commander Wolf

    Commander Wolf can i haz broadwell?

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    I think in day to day use, you're not going to notice much of a difference between either drive.

    The 5400RPM drive has a slightly higher average throughput, but because of it's 5400RPM spindle speed, the latency is a little bit higher. It's not a lot higher, though; considering that the spindle speed of the 7200RPM drive is something like 30% faster, the latency increase of the 5400RPM drive of less than 10% is pretty good.

    I'd go for the 500GB drive: more space, negligible performance loss; that 150MB burst speed on the 7200RPM drive probably won't do too much.
     
    Commander Wolf, Feb 6, 2009
    #2
  3. Michel.K

    Michel.K 167WAISIQ

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    That WD scorpio doesn't seem to get max performance. It should do nearly 70MB/s read/write. Almost all WD3200BEKT does that. Meaning 60MB/s is very low.


    Here's mine [​IMG]
     
    Michel.K, Feb 6, 2009
    #3
  4. Charles P. Jefferies

    Charles P. Jefferies Lead Moderator Super Moderator

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    What sets the 7200RPM drives apart from the 5400RPM drives is the access time. It's great that the transfer rates are similar between the 500GB and 320GB drives, but the 7200RPM drive is going to be the more responsive of the two. When accessing a lot of little files and such (which is what most programs and the operating system are doing), the access time takes precedence.

    I suppose it all comes down to how much capacity you need.
     
    Charles P. Jefferies, Feb 6, 2009
    #4
  5. t30power

    t30power Notebook Deity

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    Ok thanks.

    I just ordered the WD3200BEKT and 4GB of RAM.

    Will try Windows 7 on my T61 later :p
     
    t30power, Feb 6, 2009
    #5
  6. jisaac

    jisaac Notebook Deity

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    make sure you dual boot otherwise you wont be able to use your computer when the beta expires
     
    jisaac, Feb 7, 2009
    #6
  7. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    I'm not sure how accurate HD Tune's measure of burst rate is. I got big differences between HD Tune and HDTach as reported here. As already noted, burst rate doesn't make much of a difference since it it only applies to any data in the HDD cache, as long as the burst rate is faster than the maximum data transfer rate.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Feb 7, 2009
    #7