Advice Please: The Importance of Hard Drive RPMs

kony wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 09:41:26 GMT, CJT
wrote:


kony wrote:


On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 07:38:26 GMT, CJT
wrote:




I suppose you're just a troll, since I already told you that the
browser caches all those files to the HDD when "browsing".

The actual amount of data involved in caching web pages is quite small.


Untrue, or at least only relatively small. I rebooted the system
I'm on right now, a few hours ago... since then the empty cache
has gained over 2000 files. a little over 20MB. It would've been
even larger but I have about 70% of the ad host servers and
shockwave flash blocked.


20 MB in a few hours is a pittance. And most of that is essentially
"write only" in the case of Web caching.


Yes, but it does effect the performance. It's not 20MB that's
the issue, it's that so many web pages have dozens of tiny files.

Chances are, the relevant pages are either still in RAM (either in
a cache managed by a browser or a buffer managed by the OS) when needed
or can be brought back in by any modern drive (5400, 7200, or whatever,
which is what this was originally about -- not some circa 1970 drive)
by the time the check for whether the cached copy is current has
completed.




Ok, i can accept that we'll just disagree, and be glad that my
systems are all faster because of it.


Whatever.


My "opinion" is not unique, plenty of people upgrade their drive
or choose a faster drive for the performance benefit.

I know a lot of people probably spend money, and are convinced that they
see a benefit, but I think a double-blind test would be required to know
whether that's justified. I suspect the money spent on such upgrades
is largely wasted, except that it helps out the drive makers.




I disagree. I've stated my position. And it's a few seconds a day,
not "over and over again" "for many basic PC uses."


It's only a few seconds if you only load a few things per day.
Even starting a single appliation like MS Work can take a couple
seconds longer with an old, slow hard drive. In an office

We weren't talking about "old, slow" drives. We were talking about
"new, fast" vs. "new, faster" drives.

environment where worker only uses a half-dozen applications that
is not such as issue as with a home user that has enough
experience using their system and the 'net to be thinking ahead,
to what their next command will be while wait for the app to
load... instead of being able to start the next task already. Of
course this is assuming only a single HDD, I suggest not only one
fast HDD but multiples.


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

kony wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 09:34:10 GMT, CJT
wrote:



Even playing DVD images doesn't tax modern "slow" drives. Video
_editing_ might, but there you're trying to go (much) faster than
real time. I can play half a dozen .wav files (which are more data
intensive than MP3s) simultaneously and the disk LED hardly lights.

If you're playing uncompressed video, then I can understand why you
might want a fast drive. But that's not a very smart thing to do.


I didn't say any one thing would 'tax' the slower drive. I simply said
there would be a noticeable improvement with the faster one.


I don't know how you'd notice an improvement if it's already playing the
DVD image at normal speed. You wouldn't want the video to go any
faster.


Some software DVD players (application) and likely many more in
the future, will have post-processing quality settings to improve
playback. The longer it takes data to get to CPU, the less
post-processing can be done.

If they're clever enough to do post-processing of DVDs, they should
be clever enough to prebuffer the data they'll need.




And you could probably play an MP3 at the same time, but it might be
a bit odd with the DVD sound mixed in.


What about multiple system on a LAN? MP3 is low enough bitrate
that LAN is a good option.
I may have a few dozen mp3 cued up, playing on one system and end
up doing something else on another system storing those MP3.
Usually the data is on different HDDs, but not always.


In one of the earlier sub-threads, I described being able to play
half a dozen .WAV files simultaneously off of a 5400 RPM drive without
it breaking a sweat. Those were, in fact, going out over a LAN. It
would be silly to try to play them all through one set of speakers.


There's probably some pathological mix you can come up with that would
max things out, but I doubt it would qualify as a typical use. When
this thread started out, I said I was mostly speaking of typical office
applications -- things like video editing and some games _will_ benefit

from faster gear.


It's not always about "max". The entire system is waiting for
data when it makes a read request. In other words, your P4 (or
whatever) CPU will get less work done with a slower hard drive.
Your browser's pages will finish displaying slower. Game levels
take longer to load. Backups take longer. Etc, etc, etc, and
most of this time you're sitting there waiting for the hard
drive, not any other part of the system.


Some things admittedly _will_ take longer, possibly including backups
(but not if you back up to DVD, because in that case the DVD writer
rather than the hard disk will be the bottleneck).


I have yet to see a user who didn't notice the difference between a
15 gig 5400 RPM drive and a 120 gig 7200 RPM drive. The later is
simply faster.






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

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

kony wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 21:29:03 GMT, CJT
wrote:



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).










Clueless.

Browser caches everything to disk, and reloads it all from this
cache until pages are refreshed unless brower is changed from
defaults.

The only time HDD speed doesn't matter much is when system has A)
Excess system memory to cache files B) Limited multitasking so
files are never flushed from this cache.









I stand by what I said. Watch your disk light some time. If it's
on a lot, then the disk speed might make a difference. If it
hardly
ever flashes, then your drive's speed doesn't matter one bit.


Most folk's applications have a heck of a time getting from the
hard drive to RAM without flashing the LED.


No disagreement here, but for most folks that's a minuscule
fraction of
the time they spend sitting in front of the computer.


Well, we could quibble over what 'minuscule' means in this context
but the reality of it is that most home users don't load up Word
and then leave it there all day while they, however frequently or
infrequently, pound out documents; they, e.g. families, are often a
competing set of users with applications going up and down rather
often and even a 'single' gamer doesn't necessarily load up just
one game for the day. And it really doesn't matter if
'mathematically' the disk usage is a 'small percentage' of the
total time because what a user 'feels' and gauges things by is how
long it takes between 'click-click' and whatever they expect to
happen from it.

And that's before we even get to doing a couple of things
simultaneously and/or burning CD/DVDs, playing videos/MP3s, etc.


Even playing DVD images doesn't tax modern "slow" drives. Video
_editing_ might, but there you're trying to go (much) faster than
real time. I can play half a dozen .wav files (which are more data
intensive than MP3s) simultaneously and the disk LED hardly lights.

If you're playing uncompressed video, then I can understand why you
might want a fast drive. But that's not a very smart thing to do.


I didn't say any one thing would 'tax' the slower drive. I simply
said there would be a noticeable improvement with the faster one.

I don't know how you'd notice an improvement if it's already playing the
DVD image at normal speed. You wouldn't want the video to go any
faster.

And you could probably play an MP3 at the same time, but it might be
a bit odd with the DVD sound mixed in.

There's probably some pathological mix you can come up with that would
max things out, but I doubt it would qualify as a typical use.


It would seem you're fixated on some notion that it's only 'noticeable'
if the hard drive is perpetually pedal to the metal with the LED bright,
solar flare, red but that simply isn't the case.

Not really. It's that my disk light almost never even flickers. And
that I have used a mix of 5400 and 7200 drives and never noticed a
difference. Maybe my use patterns are unusual, or I'm insensitive to
delay, but I kinda doubt it.

You can propose scenarios all day long and point out what you perceive
as 'flaws' with what is simply an attempt to explain in some small way
WHY people notice it but the plain fact is that they DO; and easily.

I frankly think what they "notice" has more to do with what they _think_
is installed than what is actually installed, and I think a double-blind
test could be lots of fun.

At any rate, I've enjoyed talking to you and the others on this thread,
but I think what can be said pretty much has been said, so I plan to
move on. I seem to have a different view from many of you. It's not
the first time that's happened. g



When
this thread started out, I said I was mostly speaking of typical office


As I said, I don't think the office use you described is 'typical' of
most users.

applications -- things like video editing and some games _will_ benefit
from faster gear.


I have yet to see a user who didn't notice the difference between a
15 gig 5400 RPM drive and a 120 gig 7200 RPM drive. The later is
simply faster.








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

Hey Dirwin, you are the newbie here and in the scsi group. You have done
nothing but troll.

You are be too stupid to comprehend "get an LVD cable", and did nothing but
nitpick and act dense in that thread.

You are also too stupid to realize hard drives can be jumped read-only. In
that thread you never even explained what you were trying to accomplish.

There is not one regular of the scsi/storage groups who supports you. There is
a local history of mentally disturbed trolls like you, and zero tolerence for
them. Take you trolling someplace else.

"Darren Harris" wrote in message
om...
"Folkert Rienstra" wrote in message
...
Please people, show some restraint and learn to ignore this TROLL.
This is another very obvious troll question.

Hey moron. Your immature post only demonstrated that *you* are the
troll. Things were fine until you showed up.

Now go harass someone else. There are adults here, and I am tired of
you starting trouble whenever I post.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

"David Maynard" wrote in message
CJT wrote:
David Maynard wrote:
CJT wrote:
kony wrote:
On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 21:29:03 GMT, CJT wrote:

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).

Clueless.

Browser caches everything to disk, and reloads it all from this
cache until pages are refreshed unless brower is changed from
defaults.

Och, the times that drives were slower than an internet connection, those were the times.


The only time HDD speed doesn't matter much is when system has
A) Excess system memory to cache files B) Limited multitasking so
files are never flushed from this cache.

I stand by what I said. Watch your disk light some time. If it's
on a lot, then the disk speed might make a difference. If it hardly
ever flashes, then your drive's speed doesn't matter one bit.

Most folk's applications have a heck of a time getting from the hard
drive to RAM without flashing the LED.

No disagreement here, but for most folks that's a minuscule fraction of
the time they spend sitting in front of the computer.

Well, we could quibble over what 'minuscule' means in this context but the
reality of it is that most home users don't load up Word and then leave it
there all day while they, however frequently or infrequently, pound out
documents; they, e.g. families, are often a competing set of users with
applications going up and down rather often and even a 'single' gamer
doesn't necessarily load up just one game for the day. And it really
doesn't matter if 'mathematically' the disk usage is a 'small percentage'
of the total time because what a user 'feels' and gauges things by is how
long it takes between 'click-click' and whatever they expect to happen from it.

And that's before we even get to doing a couple of things simultaneously
and/or burning CD/DVDs, playing videos/MP3s, etc.


I have yet to see a user who didn't notice the difference between a 15 gig
5400 RPM drive and a 120 gig 7200 RPM drive. The later is simply faster.

And I have yet to see a user who won't notice the difference between a 15 gig
7200 RPM drive and a 120 gig 5400 RPM drive. The latter is simply faster.

However, the 15GB/7200rpm drive may still load an internetpage (from cache)
existing of a thousand puny files a bit faster than it's much newer 120GB/5400rpm
competitor.

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 02:40:02 GMT, kony wrote:

Nothing wrong with choosing cheapest GB/$ for mass storage, but
it cripples a system to use such drives as primary app or OS
drive.

And GB per platter is important also, because the shorter distance the
heads have to move to access the data the faster they are. While 7200
rpm sub 9ms drives have been around for a while now, drives are
getting faster and faster as manufacturers cram more and more data per
sq. cm.

My hard drive upgrades have proven to be my most significant system
performance increases as far as boot time and application loads are
concerned.

MT

"Eric Gisin" wrote in message ...
Hey Dirwin, you are the newbie here and in the scsi group. You have done
nothing but troll.

I'm not a newbie here, and your lies mean nothing, because anyone here
can search the archive and see that you were trying your best to break
the world record for being an asshole. You can't even spell my name
correctly.

You are be too stupid to comprehend "get an LVD cable", and did nothing but
nitpick and act dense in that thread.

More lies. You couldn't even understand the question, so why did you
bother posting?

You are also too stupid to realize hard drives can be jumped read-only. In
that thread you never even explained what you were trying to accomplish.

I explained enough, but since it takes someone with intelligence to
understand even the simpliest things, you were out of the loop. What I
was "trying to accomplish" ended up turning into a fight, because your
only contribution was to be a pain in the ass. In fact that is all
you've contributed to this thread with your first post.

There is not one regular of the scsi/storage groups who supports you. There is
a local history of mentally disturbed trolls like you, and zero tolerence for
them. Take you trolling someplace else.

I have a lot more support than you. But as far as "a local history of
mentally disturbed trolls", let's see...

I just did a search for "Eric Gisin" on Google Newsgroups and the very
first page brought up the following 10 threads:

1) Eric Gisin Sodomizes Sheep
2) Newsgroup Abuser Eric Gisin
3) Eric Gisin in BC
4) Eric Gisin, Newsgroup Faggot Punk
5) Troll Alert: Eric Gisin
6) The Assholes of van.general: E.Schild & Eric Gisin
7) Troll Elimination: Eric Gisin
8) Does Eric Gisin like anchovies?
9) Eric Gisin, that bitch in BC
10) Please report Eric Gisin to

Damn! You're a real celebrity. How was I to know what kind of company
I was in? You had to really try hard in order to inspire that kind of
love. :-)

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

CJT wrote:
David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

kony wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 21:29:03 GMT, CJT
wrote:



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).











Clueless.

Browser caches everything to disk, and reloads it all from this
cache until pages are refreshed unless brower is changed from
defaults.

The only time HDD speed doesn't matter much is when system has A)
Excess system memory to cache files B) Limited multitasking so
files are never flushed from this cache.










I stand by what I said. Watch your disk light some time. If it's
on a lot, then the disk speed might make a difference. If it
hardly
ever flashes, then your drive's speed doesn't matter one bit.


Most folk's applications have a heck of a time getting from the
hard drive to RAM without flashing the LED.


No disagreement here, but for most folks that's a minuscule
fraction of
the time they spend sitting in front of the computer.


Well, we could quibble over what 'minuscule' means in this context
but the reality of it is that most home users don't load up Word
and then leave it there all day while they, however frequently or
infrequently, pound out documents; they, e.g. families, are often
a competing set of users with applications going up and down
rather often and even a 'single' gamer doesn't necessarily load up
just one game for the day. And it really doesn't matter if
'mathematically' the disk usage is a 'small percentage' of the
total time because what a user 'feels' and gauges things by is how
long it takes between 'click-click' and whatever they expect to
happen from it.

And that's before we even get to doing a couple of things
simultaneously and/or burning CD/DVDs, playing videos/MP3s, etc.



Even playing DVD images doesn't tax modern "slow" drives. Video
_editing_ might, but there you're trying to go (much) faster than
real time. I can play half a dozen .wav files (which are more data
intensive than MP3s) simultaneously and the disk LED hardly lights.

If you're playing uncompressed video, then I can understand why you
might want a fast drive. But that's not a very smart thing to do.



I didn't say any one thing would 'tax' the slower drive. I simply
said there would be a noticeable improvement with the faster one.

I don't know how you'd notice an improvement if it's already playing the
DVD image at normal speed. You wouldn't want the video to go any
faster.

And you could probably play an MP3 at the same time, but it might be
a bit odd with the DVD sound mixed in.

There's probably some pathological mix you can come up with that would
max things out, but I doubt it would qualify as a typical use.



It would seem you're fixated on some notion that it's only
'noticeable' if the hard drive is perpetually pedal to the metal with
the LED bright, solar flare, red but that simply isn't the case.


Not really. It's that my disk light almost never even flickers. And
that I have used a mix of 5400 and 7200 drives and never noticed a
difference. Maybe my use patterns are unusual, or I'm insensitive to
delay, but I kinda doubt it.


You can propose scenarios all day long and point out what you perceive
as 'flaws' with what is simply an attempt to explain in some small way
WHY people notice it but the plain fact is that they DO; and easily.


I frankly think what they "notice" has more to do with what they _think_
is installed than what is actually installed,

It's a nice theory based on a real, known, human 'perception'
characteristic (and one I often make joke of with "I washed my car and now
it runs better) but most of the one I've dealt with had no expectations
because, frankly, they are clueless about hardware. Which is not meant to
be disparaging; they simply want a computer that works just as they want a
car that works without necessarily becoming an 'expert' on combustion
chamber shape or fuel-air ratios.

In particular, most of the ones I've dealt with were seeking repair of a
failed drive and not a performance improvement. That came as a 'surprise'.

and I think a double-blind
test could be lots of fun.

At any rate, I've enjoyed talking to you and the others on this thread,
but I think what can be said pretty much has been said, so I plan to
move on. I seem to have a different view from many of you. It's not
the first time that's happened. g

I enjoyed it too and it's always interesting to get alternate impressions
on what is, basically, a matter of impressions.


When
this thread started out, I said I was mostly speaking of typical office



As I said, I don't think the office use you described is 'typical' of
most users.

applications -- things like video editing and some games _will_ benefit
from faster gear.


I have yet to see a user who didn't notice the difference between
a 15 gig 5400 RPM drive and a 120 gig 7200 RPM drive. The later is
simply faster.

Folkert Rienstra wrote:

"David Maynard" wrote in message

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

kony wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 21:29:03 GMT, CJT wrote:


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).

Clueless.

Browser caches everything to disk, and reloads it all from this
cache until pages are refreshed unless brower is changed from
defaults.


Och, the times that drives were slower than an internet connection, those were the times.

You've mixed replying to someone else inside of a reply you indicate at the
top, by the order of posters listed, is to me.

The only time HDD speed doesn't matter much is when system has
A) Excess system memory to cache files B) Limited multitasking so
files are never flushed from this cache.

I stand by what I said. Watch your disk light some time. If it's
on a lot, then the disk speed might make a difference. If it hardly
ever flashes, then your drive's speed doesn't matter one bit.

Most folk's applications have a heck of a time getting from the hard
drive to RAM without flashing the LED.

No disagreement here, but for most folks that's a minuscule fraction of
the time they spend sitting in front of the computer.

Well, we could quibble over what 'minuscule' means in this context but the
reality of it is that most home users don't load up Word and then leave it
there all day while they, however frequently or infrequently, pound out
documents; they, e.g. families, are often a competing set of users with
applications going up and down rather often and even a 'single' gamer
doesn't necessarily load up just one game for the day. And it really
doesn't matter if 'mathematically' the disk usage is a 'small percentage'
of the total time because what a user 'feels' and gauges things by is how
long it takes between 'click-click' and whatever they expect to happen from it.

And that's before we even get to doing a couple of things simultaneously
and/or burning CD/DVDs, playing videos/MP3s, etc.



I have yet to see a user who didn't notice the difference between a 15 gig
5400 RPM drive and a 120 gig 7200 RPM drive. The later is simply faster.


And I have yet to see a user who won't notice the difference between a 15 gig
7200 RPM drive and a 120 gig 5400 RPM drive. The latter is simply faster.

However, the 15GB/7200rpm drive may still load an internetpage (from cache)
existing of a thousand puny files a bit faster than it's much newer 120GB/5400rpm
competitor.

Well, you've mixed apples and oranges in not only the messages you're
replying to, mixing someone else's in with mine, but in the supposed
'argument'.

When I said, "it's simply faster" I meant the 'faster' drive *is* faster by
every measurable standard..

But I can't tell what you mean by it as you say 'faster' in one case and
then say precisely the opposite in the other, as if one is a 'fake'
"faster" with the other a real but 'irrelevant' "faster."

Let me be clear about it. My comment was that a (significantly) faster
drive, regardless of how it achieves the speed (RPM, linear density [which
I explained previously], etc), is noticed by the user in program load
times, at the least, whether the system 'needs' it to 'keep up' with some
notion of 'average load' or not.

David Maynard wrote:

Folkert Rienstra wrote:

"David Maynard" wrote in message


CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

kony wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 21:29:03 GMT, CJT wrote:


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).

Clueless.

Browser caches everything to disk, and reloads it all from this
cache until pages are refreshed unless brower is changed from
defaults.


Och, the times that drives were slower than an internet connection, those
were the times.

You've mixed replying to someone else inside of a reply you indicate at
the top, by the order of posters listed, is to me.

The only time HDD speed doesn't matter much is when system has
A) Excess system memory to cache files B) Limited multitasking so
files are never flushed from this cache.

I stand by what I said. Watch your disk light some time. If it's
on a lot, then the disk speed might make a difference. If it hardly
ever flashes, then your drive's speed doesn't matter one bit.

Most folk's applications have a heck of a time getting from the hard
drive to RAM without flashing the LED.

No disagreement here, but for most folks that's a minuscule fraction of
the time they spend sitting in front of the computer.

Well, we could quibble over what 'minuscule' means in this context but
the reality of it is that most home users don't load up Word and then
leave it there all day while they, however frequently or infrequently,
pound out documents; they, e.g. families, are often a competing set of
users with applications going up and down rather often and even a
'single' gamer doesn't necessarily load up just one game for the day. And
it really doesn't matter if 'mathematically' the disk usage is a 'small
percentage' of the total time because what a user 'feels' and gauges
things by is how long it takes between 'click-click' and whatever they
expect to happen from it.

And that's before we even get to doing a couple of things simultaneously
and/or burning CD/DVDs, playing videos/MP3s, etc.



I have yet to see a user who didn't notice the difference between a 15
gig 5400 RPM drive and a 120 gig 7200 RPM drive. The later is simply
faster.


And I have yet to see a user who won't notice the difference between a
15 gig 7200 RPM drive and a 120 gig 5400 RPM drive. The latter is simply
faster.

However, the 15GB/7200rpm drive may still load an internetpage (from
cache) existing of a thousand puny files a bit faster than it's much
newer 120GB/5400rpm competitor.

Well, you've mixed apples and oranges in not only the messages you're
replying to, mixing someone else's in with mine, but in the supposed
'argument'.

When I said, "it's simply faster" I meant the 'faster' drive *is* faster
by every measurable standard..

But I can't tell what you mean by it as you say 'faster' in one case and
then say precisely the opposite in the other, as if one is a 'fake'
"faster" with the other a real but 'irrelevant' "faster."

Let me be clear about it. My comment was that a (significantly) faster
drive, regardless of how it achieves the speed (RPM, linear density [which
I explained previously], etc), is noticed by the user in program load
times, at the least, whether the system 'needs' it to 'keep up' with some
notion of 'average load' or not.

If you have a drive that is faster in all regards then yes, it's faster in
all regards and so what?

But if you have a drive that has a higher data transfer rate but a longer
access time than another drive, then which is "faster" is going to depend
on whether the access favors transfer rate or access time. In the case of
the 15G/7200 vs 120G/5400 for the circumstance that was described,
accessing a large number of small files, access time is going to dominate
and the 7200 will be faster.

Now, before you say anything about a 5400 rpm drive with the same access
time as a 7200 RPM drive, access time is a function of rotational
velocity--the seek time on the 5400 would have to be enormously faster than
on the 7200 to achieve parity in access time, if it could be achieved at
all--if the access time on the 7200 is less than the latency on the 5400
then it can't be achieved at all without going to multiple heads per
platter.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)