Hard Drive Speed??

  • Thread starter Thread starter PawsForThought
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PawsForThought

Right now I have a 5400 rpm 30 gig hard drive and I'm thinking of upgrading to
a 7200 rpm. I saw a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 with 8 mg cache and also one with a 2
mg cache. Western Digital also makes one with an 8 mg cache.

So my question is will there be a noticeable difference between the 5400 rpm
and a 7200 rmp? Is there a noticeable difference between the 8 mg cache buffer
and the 2 mg cache buffer? Also, as far as performance, does it matter if the
drive is 60 gb or 120 gb?

Thanks for any input.
 
Right now I have a 5400 rpm 30 gig hard drive and I'm thinking of upgrading to
a 7200 rpm. I saw a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 with 8 mg cache and also one with a 2
mg cache. Western Digital also makes one with an 8 mg cache.

So my question is will there be a noticeable difference between the 5400 rpm
and a 7200 rmp? Is there a noticeable difference between the 8 mg cache buffer
and the 2 mg cache buffer? Also, as far as performance, does it matter if the
drive is 60 gb or 120 gb?
Click to expand...

all tohether big difference!

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PawsForThought said:
Right now I have a 5400 rpm 30 gig hard drive and I'm thinking of upgrading to
a 7200 rpm. I saw a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 with 8 mg cache and also one with a 2
mg cache. Western Digital also makes one with an 8 mg cache.

So my question is will there be a noticeable difference between the 5400 rpm
and a 7200 rmp? Is there a noticeable difference between the 8 mg cache buffer
and the 2 mg cache buffer? Also, as far as performance, does it matter if the
drive is 60 gb or 120 gb?

Thanks for any input.
Click to expand...

There will be a large difference in anything that needs to read from the drive.
7200/5400 = 33% faster. Most present drive speed is limited by how fast the
heads can read the data on the platter(s). No present IDE drives can saturate
the ATA66 interface, but it is an improvement over the now obsolete ATA33.
ATA100 and ATA133 are mostly marketing hype.

The speed of the drive is affected by the way the data is physically written
on the platters. This varies between drive manufacturers, but is about
the same for all. Check the specs for the 60GB and 120GB to see which
has the faster specs. Generally larger drive = more heads = more mass=
slower track-to-track seek time, but this is not always true.

The advantage of the larger buffer depends greatly on how the drive access
is used. I see an increase in defrag speeds on my 8MB buffer drive, but it
is hard to know if this is due to the larger buffer.

Some makers still give a 3 year warranty on certain drives, usually the
8MB buffered ones.

Virg Wall
 
I think the single best improvement in speed I have experienced is when I
went from a 5400 rpm to a 7200 rpm hard drive. VERY noticeable.
 
A bigger e.g. 120 GB will have better performance than a smaller e.g. 60 GB drive if they have the same number of platters because of the higher data density on the bigger drive. If they each have the same density e.g. if the 60 GB drive has 2 platters and the 120 GB drive has 4 platters then you won't notice any difference in performance.
 
From: V W Wall (e-mail address removed)
There will be a large difference in anything that needs to read from the
drive.
7200/5400 = 33% faster. Most present drive speed is limited by how fast the
heads can read the data on the platter(s). No present IDE drives can
saturate
the ATA66 interface, but it is an improvement over the now obsolete ATA33.
ATA100 and ATA133 are mostly marketing hype.

The speed of the drive is affected by the way the data is physically written
on the platters. This varies between drive manufacturers, but is about
the same for all. Check the specs for the 60GB and 120GB to see which
has the faster specs. Generally larger drive = more heads = more mass=
slower track-to-track seek time, but this is not always true.

The advantage of the larger buffer depends greatly on how the drive access
is used. I see an increase in defrag speeds on my 8MB buffer drive, but it
is hard to know if this is due to the larger buffer.

Some makers still give a 3 year warranty on certain drives, usually the
8MB buffered ones.

Virg Wall
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the explanation. I really appreciate it. I ended up
getting the Western Digital 80 gig with 8 mg cache. Haven't installed it yet
though.
 
From: "DaveW" (e-mail address removed)
The 7200 rpm with 8 MB of cache will be Noticeably faster. Go for it.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Dave. I did get it. I was debating between the Western Digital and
Maxtor, but the WD seemed to get better reviews, so that's what I went with,
plus it had a $50 rebate.
 
From: "MrB" (e-mail address removed)
I think the single best improvement in speed I have experienced is when I
went from a 5400 rpm to a 7200 rpm hard drive. VERY noticeable.
Click to expand...

That's great to hear. Thanks!
 
From: Mike Walsh (e-mail address removed)
A bigger e.g. 120 GB will have better performance than a smaller e.g. 60 GB
drive if they have the same number of platters because of the higher data
density on the bigger drive. If they each have the same density e.g. if the
60 GB drive has 2 platters and the 120 GB drive has 4 platters then you won't
notice any difference in performance.
Click to expand...

Hi Mike,
Interesting, but I'm not quite sure I understand what you're saying. Why would
a larger drive have a higher data density? Also, how would I know how many
platters a drive has? I did end up going with the Western Digital 80 GB. The
specs on this one and their 120 GB of the same model looked to be the same:
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=32
 
If you compare an older drive with 10 GB / platter with a newer drive with 40 GB / platter the newer drive will have about twice as many tracks with about twice as much data on each track. Since there is much more data on each track the drive will read much more with each revolution of the platter.
Somewhere in the drive specs the number of platters should be listed. It could be anywhere from 1 to 6.
 
The 80 GB drive has 2 platters, the 120 GB drive has 3 platters, so most of the specs are the same.
 
From: Mike Walsh (e-mail address removed)
If you compare an older drive with 10 GB / platter with a newer drive with 40
GB / platter the newer drive will have about twice as many tracks with about
twice as much data on each track. Since there is much more data on each track
the drive will read much more with each revolution of the platter.
Somewhere in the drive specs the number of platters should be listed. It
could be anywhere from 1 to 6.
Click to expand...
The 80 GB drive has 2 platters, the 120 GB drive has 3 platters, so most of
the specs are the same.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Mike! I appreciate it.
 
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