5,400 rpm vs 7,200 rpm

I'm thinking of getting a M1210 or M1330 but I was wondering how the two speeds of the hard drives differ.
Other than that the 7,200 rpm drive reads and writes faster...

1. Does the rpm affect gameplay?
2. Does the 7200 rpm drain the batteries faster?
3. How much faster is the 7200 at starting up stuff..for example, windows XP, compared to the 5400?

Thanks in advance

 

1. Not really. Once the game has started, most everything will be run from the RAM instead of the hard disk. However, if you have a very small amount of RAM, the hard disk will play a major role.

2. Yes, the 7200 will run hotter and drain batteries faster.

3. Don't know, but the 7200 averages around 40% faster data transfer from the stats I've seen. But that doesn't really make a very big difference..

If you can afford the 7200 get it, but you shouldn't be disappointed with the 5400.

 

5400RPM is fine for most users - although if you're doing some very hard drive intensive work, like a lot of image manipulation (especially with larger files) the 7200RPM may well be worth it. It is quite a price premium over a similar sized 5400RPM drive.

7200RPM drives do not product much more heat or use up much more power than a 5400RPM drive. I wouldn't worry about that small effect if performance is what you're after.

 

I intentionally selected a 5400 rpm drive. Maybe it's just me but comfort has taken over the roll of the performance. I no longer enjoy loud hot drives (read 7200 rpm).

 

The battery life difference should be very tiny.

 

THanks for all the replies

 

If I were you, I'd stick with the 5,400 as actual tests have shown that it really is only about 20%, and if a bit of time matters that much to you, then go ahead, but really, you don't need the 7200.

 

7200 rpm drive manufacturers claim that they don't draw any more power....

 

Hi guys. I just ordered a Dell 640M with a 1.8 Core Duo (2MB L2) and a 120Gig 5400RPM drive. Chuck232 mentioned that for image editing, it might be worth it to get a 7200RPM drive. I am now second guessing my order and thinking of getting a D630 instead. My configuration is significantly more expensive ($500 more): 2.0 Santa Rosa Core 2 Duo (4MB L2) and an 80Gig 7200RPM drive.

Do you guys think there is a significant difference in performance between the two machines. Otherwise, I am considering sticking with the 640M and buying a 7200RPM to replace the 5400RPM.

Thanks! And sorry if I am derailing this thread.

P.S. I am currently running a desktop with the Dual Core 820 (2.8Gig) with 2.5Gig RAM. I am guessing the 640M with 1.8Gig CPU, 5400RPM drive and 2Gig RAM will be significantly less efficient/powerful in Photoshop and other image editing tools. Am I right?

 

Fuji - check your PM.


For the money, the D630 is worth it. It's build quality is much nicer. The 640M's build quality is just like my Inspiron E1505. It's very cheap and plastic all around. The hinges on the LCD are loosing their ability to keep the screen from wobbling and the pain is fading. Every time I pick the laptop up from the corner, it makes loud squeaky noise that let's you know that it's cheap quality.

I love it though because it's a very basic computer. But if I had the chance, I would have just forked over the extra dough for a nice laptop (D620 at the time). The D630 is a business laptop designed to last for a long time.

 

Thanks for the PM Sirius.

I totally agree with you regarding the build. I am a sucker for good build quality. But I also tend to handle my gear with care so we'll see. Hopefully the performance is there.

 

I was looking around and found this on the forums..

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=30057

"Internal Drives

Unless you're using an ultraportable notebook, you're going to want a 2.5" hard disk, and it's probably going to be IDE (see my previous spiel).

Notebook drives come in three different speeds: 4200rpm, 5400rpm, and 7200rpm. These speeds refer to the speed at which the spindle inside the drive rotates. Without going into too much detail, they basically refer mostly to how fast data can be accessed from the drive.

Now, it stands to reason that the faster a drive spins, the more power it's going to eat. By and large that's true, but it's not the great difference anyone thinks it is. In fact, some 5400rpm drives report lower power usage than 4200s. If anything, the power consumption of a 5400rpm drive is about on par with a 4200. The rare 7200rpm drives do eat a little more power, usually cutting your battery life by a few minutes.

Another major consideration associated with drive speed is heat. 4200rpm and 5400rpm drives will run much cooler than a 7200rpm drive will, and if your notebook already has heat problems (like mine), the move to a 7200rpm drive won't be a good choice.

The faster a drive is, the more expensive it's going to be. There's a decent price hike from 4200rpm to 5400rpm and then a massive one from 5400rpm to 7200rpm.

The general rule seems to be that the sweet spot for drive speed, heat, battery life, price, and performance is a 5400rpm drive.

Most notebooks come with a 4200rpm drive standard, and that's cripplingly slow. 1.8" drives are always 4200rpm, but they're also smaller and the drive heads have less distance to cover, so it's not so much of an issue. For what it's worth, my old Sony TR2A had faster access times on its 40GB 1.8" drive than my current Gateway 7510GX has on its 100GB 2.5" drive, and both have the same spindle speed.

The difference in performance between a 4200rpm and 5400rpm drive is usually about 33% in favor of the 5400. A lot of users have reported substantially smoother computing experiences after making this upgrade, so if you can go with a 5400rpm if you're custom ordering your machine, do so."
-Pulp

So the power isn't an issue.
Just heat with a faster hard drive.

 

7200rpm for me, gives me about 25% better boot time, and for my applications, about 30% faster work. To me that is huge.

How to I know this, we have 4 computers at work, (D420), 2 of them have 5400rpm drives and other two, 7200rpm drives, with same software, and using the good old stopwatch.

 

Benchmarks for a bunch of different HDD.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/storage/charts25.html

The higher rpm would help in loading and keep things smoother in RPGs like Oblivion (zones loading on the fly) and MMOs like WoW (background loading).

In FPS everything "should" load in ram but I think games like BF2/2142 sometimes don't apply to this. Mostly in large games where theres 64 players and huge maps, it may start caching to the HDD.

But as you can see, density plays a factor in performance also.