5400 vs 7200 rpm Hard Drive

[Rod Hagen]

What is the perceivable difference b/w the two hard drive speeds?

[+ deej]

Not much, unless you're doing something that's heavily disc-bound.

 

Heavy database processing can seriously strain a slower disk. Video editing can as well, if your machine doesn't have enough RAM to hold the entire job you're processing. Then it will constantly swap bits and pieces to/from disc.

 

But for the average user (email, word processing, etc.), there's probably no visible difference. Most applications (like word processors) will read an entire file from disc and do all work in RAM, only going back to the disc when you save.

[N.N.]

Go with 10,000 rpm and be happier still.

[JamesK840]

It also depends on whether you're talking desktop or laptop. Full-sized hard drives are all pretty close in perceptible speed for general desktop use. But laptop hard drives (sometimes as slow as 4200RPM) are often the most noticeable performance bottleneck on an otherwise fast laptop.

 

If you're just doing office and web stuff, 5400 is fine. But if you're getting a high performance computer to do gaming or video editing be sure to get at least 7200. There are starting to be perpendicular recording drives for laptops, those might be faster still, even though the first are only 5400. This is because of ariel density: the number of bits packed into a certain amount of space. So in the desktop market, for example, an older 120GB 7200 might be the same or slower then a new model of 400 or 500GB drive, depending on how they're made.

 

Most desktop drives are 7200 now though, so 5400 drives (especially in smaller sizes) are really going to be bargain-basement affairs.

[Rod Hagen]

Thanks guys. The 7200's only $100 more, so I'm ordering that.