5400/5900RPM vs 7200RPM

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Aaroona

3192 posts

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#89034 25-Aug-2011 14:35

So I'm currently in the market for a new 1.5/2TB hard drive... I keep seeing a few hard drives that are 5400/5900.. What i am wondering, is what kind of speed difference am I likely to notice? It will only be used as a storage drive for my videos etc, and will have large files transferred to and from it often.

At the moment, I can achieve up to 130MB/s transfer between a hard drive, never dipping below 88-90MB/s.

Anyone got any ideas on this?> I dont want to purchase a slow harddrive! :P

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#511909 25-Aug-2011 15:40

Here's an good review comparing WD 2TB Black vs WD 2TB Green with various different disk benchmarks
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1077/

Basically the black costs ~$100 more but has large cache, lower response time and higher throughput.

Whether it's worth it, personal choice.

For a OS/main drive I would go for the Black or even a SSD now over a Green drive.

For storage a "green" is better value for money.

Aside from WD, you've got Samsung, Hitachi (formerly IBM storage), Seagate as options. I would say most manufacturer's have similar performance differences between their "green" and "performance" drives.

Edit: Fixed link

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Aaroona

3192 posts

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#511956 25-Aug-2011 16:56

Thanks for the reply mate - Link didnt work, but a quick search on that site brought up the article (site must not like linking).

Anyways, the results were unfortunately as I thought.. Theres no way I will be buying a green drive. :P

Aaroona

3192 posts

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#511984 25-Aug-2011 17:36

I just got an email from a seller, selling a "Green" WD 2TB drive... Model number is.... WD20EARX - he claims that the drive is 7200, but only scales back to 5400 when in power saving mode... Is this true?

If it is, then surely i can just turn off power saving mode?

Can anyone confirm this?

His reply was:

"Hi. All items are brand new and comes with supplier warranty. This particular model is WD20EARX 7200rpm but because it is a green one it will drop to 5400rpm when in power saving mode so is generally used as additional hard drive space. If it is for your operating system I would recommend using a WD Black model."

Ragnor

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#511996 25-Aug-2011 18:00

The WD20EARX is just the 2011 revision of the green drive (WD20EARS) in the review I linked.

The WD20EARX does have support for the SATA 6Gbps interface, where as the older revision in the review is SATA 3Gbps.

However, I doubt it would change the benchmarks (you need a SSD to hit the limits of the SATA 3Gbps interface I think) and if your mobo doesn't support SATA 6Gbps it's moot.

tigercorp

667 posts

Ultimate Geek

#511997 25-Aug-2011 18:01

Aaroona: I just got an email from a seller, selling a "Green" WD 2TB drive... Model number is.... WD20EARX - he claims that the drive is 7200, but only scales back to 5400 when in power saving mode... Is this true?

If it is, then surely i can just turn off power saving mode?

Can anyone confirm this?

His reply was:

"Hi. All items are brand new and comes with supplier warranty. This particular model is WD20EARX 7200rpm but because it is a green one it will drop to 5400rpm when in power saving mode so is generally used as additional hard drive space. If it is for your operating system I would recommend using a WD Black model."

WD don't actually specify the rotational speed for the Greens. They say it's varies between 5.4-7.2k. So the general assumption is that it doesn't normally run at 7.2k.

I believe the only thing you can turn off is the head parking feature after x seconds. By default it's set really low, 8s or thereabouts IIRC.

wreck90

780 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#512008 25-Aug-2011 18:32

Aaroona: So I'm currently in the market for a new 1.5/2TB hard drive... I keep seeing a few hard drives that are 5400/5900.. What i am wondering, is what kind of speed difference am I likely to notice? It will only be used as a storage drive for my videos etc, and will have large files transferred to and from it often.

At the moment, I can achieve up to 130MB/s transfer between a hard drive, never dipping below 88-90MB/s.

Anyone got any ideas on this?> I dont want to purchase a slow harddrive! :P

I buy the cheapest drive (lowest cents/gb).eg, my Samsung F4 5400 drive cost $109 on special from playtech, and plenty fast enough for me transferring at 80MB/s to 90MB/s.

I buy drives in pairs , for backup. They are so cheap and over the years I've lost data from crashed drives.

Mark

1653 posts

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#512728 26-Aug-2011 22:03

If it's just for bulk storage then don't worry so much about spindle speed, spindle speed helps for random access and finding files but not so much for transferring the files in and out ... what will help is that the higher capacity drives have a very high data density, which translates pretty good into MB/s.

I'd suggest go for as good a gigabyte to $ ratio you can find ... and then buy 2 and mirror them for safety!

Oh and don't fret so much about which brands, maybe just go for the one with the longer warranty if you find yourself with a choice. I've been in the storage arena for 15 years and not found any brand better or worse than others for reliability (the thing that kills disks fast is powering them on and off all the time, just leave the machine running :-)

corksta

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#512733 26-Aug-2011 22:34

Agree with Mark.

Just had a SSD and a 1TB 5400rpm drive installed in a 2011 Mac mini. The SSD has the OS and apps, the 1TB has all the videos and stuff. It flies. Spindle speed of the second drive is irrelevant.

Aaroona

3192 posts

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#512755 27-Aug-2011 07:05

Thanks for the reply guys - Couple of things;

So, you say the drive power on and off kills them - so does that mean I should also change the idle time in my power options to never?

and does that mean the green drives are worse off, as they park the arm etc?

Just want to make sure I don't go and buy a ticking time bomb.

Niel

3267 posts

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#512763 27-Aug-2011 08:03

Lots of "green" stuff are not really green, they just shift the cost to somewhere else (like carbon credits).

When it comes to USB drives the spindle speed definitely makes a difference. I regularly shift large amounts of data. There is no single guideline to follow, rather read reviews. Through Google you will find web sites where customers can complain about how quickly their products failed (lots from the UK). For example the Seagate generation 11 drives had lots of failures. I think that is when they tried to cram a huge amount of data into 1 platter without thoroughly testing the technology.

If you really want reliability, go for enterprise drives and pay double the price but probably not necessary to buy two.

Regarding reliability, be aware that Windows will not tell you when your drive has bad sectors because the drive manages it and moves data as it considers necessary. A good tool for warning you when your drive is not so good is http://www.hdsentinel.com/ which has a free version not time limited. It also allows you to specify noise level (how hard the heads are moved) and a few other parameters.

You can never have enough Volvos!

Aaroona

3192 posts

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#512775 27-Aug-2011 08:57

Ok, thanks for the replies.

Right, so I've managed to narrow it down to 2 different drives.. I thoguht well I may as well try a green drive and I mean if its not great, then hey, it's only one drive.... of 2TB of data :P

I know what I'm doing is reckless, but hey, let's give it a go.

So I've got these two different drives; not sure which I should get.

Option 1. Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 64MB 2TB $113.80 (This one is 5900RPM)
Option 2. Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARX 64MB 2TB $106.00 (5400RPM)

The WD consumes a little more power in idle, than the Seagate. (not that im concerned about that)
Seagate also has a faster transfer rate.

Thoughts?
The seagate seems to be ranked No. 1, so I'm leaning towards that at the moment.

By the looks of things though, I just answered my own question lol.

beddy

93 posts

Master Geek

#512893 27-Aug-2011 15:33

I bought the Seagate drive you're looking at around a month ago and don't have any complaints about it.

It's in a new system I built primarily for ripping DVDs and acting as a server for my Apple TV 2.

Aaroona

3192 posts

Uber Geek

#512894 27-Aug-2011 15:35

beddy: I bought the Seagate drive you're looking at around a month ago and don't have any complaints about it.

It's in a new system I built primarily for ripping DVDs and acting as a server for my Apple TV 2.

Thats good to hear... Im curious, how active are you on that drive? Because I'd be accessing my files probably on a regular basis, daily. So yeah, just wondering how thats working out for you..?

beddy

93 posts

Master Geek

#512929 27-Aug-2011 18:12

Aaroona:
beddy: I bought the Seagate drive you're looking at around a month ago and don't have any complaints about it.

It's in a new system I built primarily for ripping DVDs and acting as a server for my Apple TV 2.

Thats good to hear... Im curious, how active are you on that drive? Because I'd be accessing my files probably on a regular basis, daily. So yeah, just wondering how thats working out for you..?

I use it to stream a couple of movies on a Saturday night, and some TV episodes around two or three times a week, plus the odd bit of music, so it doesn't get a heap of use. I also use it to rip DVDs and convert them to mkv files, but that's only now and then.

For my daily use I use my laptop or iPad instead.

Personally I don't think you'll notice much difference whatever drive your decide to purchase.

CutCutCut

1039 posts

Uber Geek

#522021 16-Sep-2011 15:30

Aaroona:
beddy: I bought the Seagate drive you're looking at around a month ago and don't have any complaints about it.

It's in a new system I built primarily for ripping DVDs and acting as a server for my Apple TV 2.

Thats good to hear... Im curious, how active are you on that drive? Because I'd be accessing my files probably on a regular basis, daily. So yeah, just wondering how thats working out for you..?

Did you end up getting either drive? How have you found it?

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