Advice Please: The Importance of Hard Drive RPMs
 

Can anyone tell me if hard drive spindle speed is an important factor
to consider when purchasing a hard drive?

Or should I just concentrate on average latency, average access, and
max. full seek time?

I ask because two hard drives with a data rate of 80mps can differ in
these other respects.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

"Darren Harris" wrote...
Can anyone tell me if hard drive spindle speed is an important factor
to consider when purchasing a hard drive?

Or should I just concentrate on average latency, average access, and
max. full seek time?

I ask because two hard drives with a data rate of 80mps can differ in
these other respects.

Spindle speed will drive the limits of seek and access times. You'll
probably find a significant improvement with speed when you compare groups
of "equivalent" drives with 5400, 7200, 10K, and 15K RPM speeds.

Darren Harris wrote:

Can anyone tell me if hard drive spindle speed is an important factor
to consider when purchasing a hard drive?

Or should I just concentrate on average latency, average access, and
max. full seek time?

I ask because two hard drives with a data rate of 80mps can differ in
these other respects.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

For most people, desktop hard drives are hardly ever accessed anyway,
so speed is pretty irrelevant. Unless you're setting up a server that
will be accessed by many, go for the cheapest drive per byte stored.

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
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On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 19:21:58 GMT, CJT wrote:

Darren Harris wrote:

Can anyone tell me if hard drive spindle speed is an important factor
to consider when purchasing a hard drive?
Or should I just concentrate on average latency, average access, and
max. full seek time?
I ask because two hard drives with a data rate of 80mps can differ in
these other respects.
Thanks a lot.
Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

For most people, desktop hard drives are hardly ever accessed anyway,
so speed is pretty irrelevant. Unless you're setting up a server that
will be accessed by many, go for the cheapest drive per byte stored.


Unless you've got bucket loads of memory, your OS is gonna be using a swap
file of some kind with reasonable regularity. Disk speed will make a
fairly large difference here. In any standard desktop system I'd go for a
7200 rpm drive, you got a large budget and want a fast system, get a 10k
raptor.

Please people, show some restraint and learn to ignore this TROLL.
This is another very obvious troll question.

"Darren Harris" wrote in message om
Can anyone tell me if hard drive spindle speed is an important factor
to consider when purchasing a hard drive?

Or should I just concentrate on average latency, average access, and
max. full seek time?

I ask because two hard drives with a data rate of 80mps can differ in
these other respects.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Stephen Austin wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 19:21:58 GMT, CJT wrote:

Darren Harris wrote:

Can anyone tell me if hard drive spindle speed is an important factor
to consider when purchasing a hard drive?
Or should I just concentrate on average latency, average access, and
max. full seek time?
I ask because two hard drives with a data rate of 80mps can differ in
these other respects.
Thanks a lot.
Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.


For most people, desktop hard drives are hardly ever accessed anyway,
so speed is pretty irrelevant. Unless you're setting up a server that
will be accessed by many, go for the cheapest drive per byte stored.



Unless you've got bucket loads of memory, your OS is gonna be using a
swap file of some kind with reasonable regularity. Disk speed will make
a fairly large difference here. In any standard desktop system I'd go
for a 7200 rpm drive, you got a large budget and want a fast system,
get a 10k raptor.

There's no excuse for not having "bucket loads of memory" with memory
prices as they are today. If your system does much swapping, it's going
to be hopelessly slow no matter what drive you use.

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form .

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 20:25:00 GMT, CJT wrote:

Stephen Austin wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 19:21:58 GMT, CJT wrote:

Darren Harris wrote:

Can anyone tell me if hard drive spindle speed is an important factor
to consider when purchasing a hard drive?
Or should I just concentrate on average latency, average access, and
max. full seek time?
I ask because two hard drives with a data rate of 80mps can differ in
these other respects.
Thanks a lot.
Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.


For most people, desktop hard drives are hardly ever accessed anyway,
so speed is pretty irrelevant. Unless you're setting up a server that
will be accessed by many, go for the cheapest drive per byte stored.
Unless you've got bucket loads of memory, your OS is gonna be using
a swap file of some kind with reasonable regularity. Disk speed will
make a fairly large difference here. In any standard desktop system
I'd go for a 7200 rpm drive, you got a large budget and want a fast
system, get a 10k raptor.

There's no excuse for not having "bucket loads of memory" with memory
prices as they are today. If your system does much swapping, it's going
to be hopelessly slow no matter what drive you use.


Alright, I'll concede there, but a 7200 will still provide a very
noticable performance increase over a 5400. Not just in drive benchmarks,
but in day to day computer usage.

Is this true always?
"Stephen Austin" wrote in message
news:opscx5orlkjwoli1@whoosh...
On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 20:25:00 GMT, CJT wrote:

Stephen Austin wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 19:21:58 GMT, CJT wrote:

Darren Harris wrote:

Can anyone tell me if hard drive spindle speed is an important factor
to consider when purchasing a hard drive?
Or should I just concentrate on average latency, average access, and
max. full seek time?
I ask because two hard drives with a data rate of 80mps can differ
in
these other respects.
Thanks a lot.
Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.


For most people, desktop hard drives are hardly ever accessed anyway,
so speed is pretty irrelevant. Unless you're setting up a server that
will be accessed by many, go for the cheapest drive per byte stored.
Unless you've got bucket loads of memory, your OS is gonna be using
a swap file of some kind with reasonable regularity. Disk speed will
make a fairly large difference here. In any standard desktop system
I'd go for a 7200 rpm drive, you got a large budget and want a fast
system, get a 10k raptor.

There's no excuse for not having "bucket loads of memory" with memory
prices as they are today. If your system does much swapping, it's going
to be hopelessly slow no matter what drive you use.


Alright, I'll concede there, but a 7200 will still provide a very
noticable performance increase over a 5400. Not just in drive benchmarks,
but in day to day computer usage.

Stephen Austin wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 20:25:00 GMT, CJT wrote:

Stephen Austin wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 19:21:58 GMT, CJT wrote:

Darren Harris wrote:

Can anyone tell me if hard drive spindle speed is an important factor
to consider when purchasing a hard drive?
Or should I just concentrate on average latency, average access, and
max. full seek time?
I ask because two hard drives with a data rate of 80mps can differ in
these other respects.
Thanks a lot.
Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.



For most people, desktop hard drives are hardly ever accessed anyway,
so speed is pretty irrelevant. Unless you're setting up a server that
will be accessed by many, go for the cheapest drive per byte stored.

Unless you've got bucket loads of memory, your OS is gonna be
using a swap file of some kind with reasonable regularity. Disk
speed will make a fairly large difference here. In any standard
desktop system I'd go for a 7200 rpm drive, you got a large budget
and want a fast system, get a 10k raptor.


There's no excuse for not having "bucket loads of memory" with memory
prices as they are today. If your system does much swapping, it's going
to be hopelessly slow no matter what drive you use.



Alright, I'll concede there, but a 7200 will still provide a very
noticable performance increase over a 5400. Not just in drive
benchmarks, but in day to day computer usage.

I think the devil will be in the details. If you mostly just browse the
Web, I doubt your disk will be exercised much. If you do a lot of video
editing, you probably want something pretty fast -- most likely RAID.
There's a whole range in between (and perhaps beyond).

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form .

It is true in the general case. There may be exceptions, but I can't think
of any off hand...

"Lil' Dave" wrote...
Is this true always?

Alright, I'll concede there, but a 7200 will still provide a very
noticable performance increase over a 5400. Not just in drive benchmarks,
but in day to day computer usage.