There is a huge difference between 7200rpm and 15,000rpm. The difference between 5400rpm and 7200rpm is much smaller. Naturally the 300gb 15k drive is going to be noticeably faster than any 7200rpm drive but is that extra speed worth it you for the higher cost and low amount of storage? The 1TB 7200rpm drive would still be plenty fast in it's own right and give you a lot more storage. This theory of slower drives being faster than faster drives all based on the size of the drive is going to depend A LOT on the specific drives being looked at. One does not equal all. There are some 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives that are quite a bit slower than others in tests and the size of the platters is what's going to influence whether the 5400rpm drive is faster than the 7200rpm counterpart. It doesn't matter if it's a 750gb 5400rpm drive if it has tiny little platters. Usually they're not going to use that small of platters in such a large drive like that though. But like I said it just depends on the particular model hard drive, the size of the platters, and the spindle speed when it comes down to what's "faster".
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Any reason *not* to get a 7200rpm MBP drive?
- Thread starter oxfordguy
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There is a huge difference between 7200rpm and 15,000rpm. The difference between 5400rpm and 7200rpm is much smaller. Naturally the 300gb 15k drive is going to be noticeably faster than any 7200rpm drive but is that extra speed worth it you for the higher cost and low amount of storage? The 1TB 7200rpm drive would still be plenty fast in it's own right and give you a lot more storage. This theory of slower drives being faster than faster drives all based on the size of the drive is going to depend A LOT on the specific drives being looked at. One does not equal all. There are some 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives that are quite a bit slower than others in tests and the size of the platters is what's going to influence whether the 5400rpm drive is faster than the 7200rpm counterpart. It doesn't matter if it's a 750gb 5400rpm drive if it has tiny little platters. Usually they're not going to use that small of platters in such a large drive like that though. But like I said it just depends on the particular model hard drive, the size of the platters, and the spindle speed when it comes down to what's "faster".
Oooo, now I can understand why servers have 10.000/15.000 RPM disks.
Servers are slower than PC
There are both PC and MAC servers and PC servers are the primary ones used so I don't know what you meant by that statement lol. 10k/15k drives are used mostly in servers because servers are constantly transferred large amounts of data and need to be able to access that data as quickly as possible.
He used "PC" as personal computer, not just a computer that runs Windows.
BTW, its Mac, not MAC.
Ahh, ok. Didn't catch that. Well his statement is still wrong. Servers are typically much faster than personal computers.
And I like typing it as MAC instead of Mac. Makes it stand out more in a sentence lol.
While there's no confusion in this thread, in others it could be a problem since MAC is a term used for networking, while Mac refers to Macintosh.
What is the diameter of a platter from a 7200 drive and the diameter of a platter from a 5400 drive?
They can outperform them in some instances. For example, when each drive has about 170 gigs or more occupied, then the 5400 drive will surpass the 7200 in many ways. Right now, my MBP's 320 gig drive has 164 gigs occupied. If I had a 200/7200, it'd be close to having such issues.
Yeah but the problem is when you're looking at arial density you can't just look at the size of the drive by itself when you're talking about amount of gigs being occupied. The size of the platters used is what's going to affect performance the most outside of spindle speed. The reason the WD 640gb 7200rpm 3.5" drive gives you performance a lot closer to 10k raptor speeds is because of only have 2 large platters. Other 500-750GB drives are the same size and spindle speed but they don't offer that same performance as that particular drive. How many platters does the WD 320gb Scorpio have?
7200 all the way
I had a 5400 powerbook such as yourself. I would choose a faster HDD especially for audio editing. We've been skyrocketing in computer chip performance advancement, which is fantastic. But- we are mosying along in Hard Drive advancements (they are getting smaller, but not much faster). Having a faster hard drive in my opinion is important to maximize whatever chip you're using. Especially if you have plenty of external space.
I *wish* we were at 15000 rpm for cheap internal drives. wah.
I had a 5400 powerbook such as yourself. I would choose a faster HDD especially for audio editing. We've been skyrocketing in computer chip performance advancement, which is fantastic. But- we are mosying along in Hard Drive advancements (they are getting smaller, but not much faster). Having a faster hard drive in my opinion is important to maximize whatever chip you're using. Especially if you have plenty of external space.
I *wish* we were at 15000 rpm for cheap internal drives. wah.
I'm not sure many people in this thread are all that interested in the 3.5" drives since we're talking about 2.5" notebook drives.
I don't know how many platters are in the WD 320 Scorpio. My Samsung has two 160 gig platters. The new Samsung 500 gig has three 167 gig platters.
I don't know how many platters are in the WD 320 Scorpio. My Samsung has two 160 gig platters. The new Samsung 500 gig has three 167 gig platters.
There's no difference in the logics between a 3.5" and a 2.5" hard drive. They have the same internal mechanical workings and will performance will be measured from the same influences. I was imply relating to that particular 3.5" desktop hard drive because it's a fairly popular drive and it's easy to see how it's faster than other drives in it's class.
See I'm not sure how much faster the new Samsung 500 gig 2.5" drive will be compared to your existing 320 gig one due to the fact the platters are almost the same size even though you're looking at 320 gig vs 500 gig. I'm sure it will be somewhat faster though since it's a newer designed drive. I don't know though. I need to do more reading up on the logistics of how the size of the platters vs just an overall increase in size of the hard drive relates to differences in performance.
