RPM on hard drive

thebourke

how imporant is RPM on a hard drive?
Is is better to get a 7200 RPM hard drive compared to a 5400 RPM hard drive

chin_grin

http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/115979/hardware/how_large_how_fast_choosing_the_right_hard_drive_size_and_rpm.html

Hard Drive RPM

Hard drive RPM is a hard drive's rotational speed, measured in revolutions per minute (RPM). Desktop hard drives now have speeds as high as 15,000 RPM. Notebook hard drives, on the other hand, currently have an RPM ceiling of 7200 RPM.

A hard drive's RPM indicates how fast the drive's spindle will move or how fast the hard drive platters will spin. The higher the spin rate is, the shorter the seek time and latency will be. This translates to quicker data access and transfer.

How Large and How Fast

The greater the free space and the higher the RPM, the better your notebook computer's performance will be, so go for a slightly-more-than-comfortable size and the highest RPM for your notebook computer's hard drive. A large hard drive gives you the option to expand in the future, and you can never go wrong with a notebook computer that can give you fast access to your stored data.

It is even more crucial that you go with the top-of-the-line hard drive size and RPM for your notebook computer if you are fond of computer games, you have a lot of multimedia files, or you want to be able to easily upgrade your programs. These games, content and programs take up a lot of space. A high RPM hard drive can also cut down on game load times, giving you more time enjoying your games and less time staring at loading screens.

Jackena

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/ou/how-higher-rpm-hard-drives-rip-you-off/322

old_aussie

More important if the drive contains the boot OS, not so important if the drive is just for storage

cookie1977

For the average person I dont think there's a massive difference between a 5400 and 7200 rpm drive with or without the OS installed

the_syco

cookie1977 wrote: »

For the average person I dont think there's a massive difference between a 5400 and 7200 rpm drive with or without the OS installed

If you plan to play HD movies (720p, etc), the majority of 5400rpm drives won't be a good choice. 7200rpm drives will play them. Not sure about games, but I wouldn't bother. Unless it's backup only, I wouldn't touch a 5400rpm drive.

cookie1977

A 5400 drive would have no problem playing HD films

Some say a 5400rpm drive is better as there's less heat generated

bonzodog2

The hard disk is one of the slowest parts of a modern PC, so if you want to do something that involves a lot of data transfer, e.g. video editing, a faster disk is an advantage.

bette

bonzodog2 wrote: »

The hard disk is one of the slowest parts of a modern PC, so if you want to do something that involves a lot of data transfer, e.g. video editing, a faster disk is an advantage.

Video editing:

• Raid mirroring
• Buckets of ram
• Good Graphic card
• Two monitors

cookie1977

Some 5400rpm drives can actually be faster then 7200rpm drives. Here's some links:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1122656
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1631857
http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=36069
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=150736

It's not all about rpm

Voodu Child

the_syco wrote: »

If you plan to play HD movies (720p, etc), the majority of 5400rpm drives won't be a good choice. 7200rpm drives will play them. Not sure about games, but I wouldn't bother. Unless it's backup only, I wouldn't touch a 5400rpm drive.

You only need about 1MB/s to play typical 720p, maybe 2MB/s for 1080p.

Even a full Bluray with high-bitrate video and lossless audio won't go above about 6 MB/s peak.