1TB @ 7200rpm vs. 2TB @ 5400rpm

[xanonline]

Just wondering what (if any) speed difference there would be between a 7200rpm 1TB HDD with 32MB cache and a 5400rpm 2TB HDD with 64MB cache?

Obviously 7200rpm would be faster if both the same size and cache - but in this case, with a higher aerial density and double the cache, would the 2TB be faster?

[Roger H. Veteran]

I guess it depends on if it's going to be your OS drive or not. Double density could be faster if the drives are constructed with the same amount of platters. If the drive is just your storage drive then obviously get the 2TB one :)

[xendrome]

I'd guess that 7200RPM is always going to be faster...

[xanonline]

I guess it depends on if it's going to be your OS drive or not. Double density could be faster if the drives are constructed with the same amount of platters. If the drive is just your storage drive then obviously get the 2TB one :)

The OS would be installed on it, so will be used for the OS and general storage.

I'd guess that 7200RPM is always going to be faster...

Why?

[still1]

Why?

RPM abbrev Rotation Per Minute

so if the spindle rotate faster, the faster it is to fetch data.. I am not sure if the 64Mb cache make a difference compared to 32MB

[butilikethecookie]

If your using it as a secondary drive for storing Data, get the 2TB drive. If you are installing Windows on it, programs, etc. Get the 1TB drive.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

If you are gonna use it as a primary drive, for Windows and etc. get the 7200 RPM one, because it will be faster.

If it is for data storage, things like Videos, Music, Photos and random documents, then 5400 RPM should do.

[ScorpioRGc1]

I'd figure it depends on the drive. About a year and a half ago when I was looking to get a new drive, I was looking at getting a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB, which is a 7200rpm HDD. But then I saw NewEgg had a Samsung EcoGreen F4 2TB 5400rpm drive for just $10 more. Like the OP, I was curious as to how much slower the F4 2TB drive would perform than the faster-spinning F3 1TB. However, based on a couple of user benchmarks I found online (I'm thinking possibly HardForum, but I could be mistaken) showed the two drives performed virtually identical. I believe the reason was the two drives have the same number of platters, but the F4's are twice as dense, IIRC. So I went ahead and bought the F4 and have been quite happy with it (I've been using it as my primary boot drive without any complaints). In fact, I just bought a second one to use as a backup drive to replace my old 500GB RAID0 array.

But yeah, I'd say it depends largely on the drives in question. :)

[Ryster]

Or if the 1TB drives are cheaper than the 2TB, get two and Raid 0 them :)

[philcruicks]

7200 for OS drive (faster access times)

2TB for data storage (larger capacity)

[xanonline]

Thanks for the replies, but I'm not looking for a "this or that" answer. I'm asking about speed differences, nothing else. :)

RPM abbrev Rotation Per Minute

so if the spindle rotate faster, the faster it is to fetch data.. I am not sure if the 64Mb cache make a difference compared to 32MB

If the aerial density is higher, it's also faster to fetch data, hence my question...

7200 for OS drive (faster access times)

2TB for data storage (larger capacity)

Yes, the 2TB has a larger capacity. I had no idea :laugh:

How do you know the 7200 has faster access times? Are you able to point me to somewhere that has those sort of comparisons?

Or if the 1TB drives are cheaper than the 2TB, get two and Raid 0 them :)

I'm just asking for speed differences, not advice on what to purchase. Even if I was, RAID would cost about $80 more.

I'd figure it depends on the drive. About a year and a half ago when I was looking to get a new drive, I was looking at getting a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB, which is a 7200rpm HDD. But then I saw NewEgg had a Samsung EcoGreen F4 2TB 5400rpm drive for just $10 more. Like the OP, I was curious as to how much slower the F4 2TB drive would perform than the faster-spinning F3 1TB. However, based on a couple of user benchmarks I found online (I'm thinking possibly HardForum, but I could be mistaken) showed the two drives performed virtually identical. I believe the reason was the two drives have the same number of platters, but the F4's are twice as dense, IIRC. So I went ahead and bought the F4 and have been quite happy with it (I've been using it as my primary boot drive without any complaints). In fact, I just bought a second one to use as a backup drive to replace my old 500GB RAID0 array.

But yeah, I'd say it depends largely on the drives in question. :)

Thank you, so far you are the only one to actually give an answer to my question!

[I am Reid]

RPM abbrev Rotation Per Minute

so if the spindle rotate faster, the faster it is to fetch data.. I am not sure if the 64Mb cache make a difference compared to 32MB

but if they use the same amount of platters the 1tb drive has the same amount of information in half the space so less work to fetch the data, and the RPMs of the other drive isnt twice that of the smaller drive.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Although, depending on the drive, it might not be the most horrible thing in the world, either (I'll get to that in a second). It's just that going 5400, when better drives are available for very little more money, isn't exactly smart. The hard drive is the slowest part of the system. When you go on a walk with a dog on a leash, the harddrive is the kind of dog that will sit there and resist you ever step of the way. And it's a big dog. It WILL slow your journey down...

Throw a 5400 in your own home system, then a 7200. Compare notes. Regardless of theory and ms calculations, 7200 is NOTICABLY faster for just ONE user, isn't it?

Speeding the hard drive up is the first and cheapest thing you can do to make every single part of that system faster.

$3-10 more is not the difference between slow IDE and SCSI (which could cost "a ton" more), but it's the difference between slow IDE and fast IDE. To not spend it is ultimately foolish, a misappropriation of funds (what better do you plan to divert that $3-$10 to????), especially on a server... where TONS of people are using that system, and disparate scripts and daemons are SEEKING files every which way and place on the hard drive.

Now, a quick check of the Rackshack forums show that some of their servers use the 4D040H2 from Maxtor. What a mouthful. 4D040H2. That's their 40gig d540x drive. Probably the fastest of the 5400rpm drives, so in this case, the $3-$10 price cutting measure WON'T kill you. (the brain virus that caused the people who speced this drive, though.. now that might kill you... being penny wise and pound foolish tends to kill businesses equally well as personalCheck out the StorageReview write up of this drive.

http://www.storagere...04G160J8_1.html

Bear in mind that StorageReview went ahead and did what many hosts won't. They turned off Accoustic Management, which makes the seek faster, at the expense of being a little louder. Many drives have this on by default. The drive you get in your server might have this on -- saving the non-existant ears of nearby servers a bit, and slowing you down. They also turned off write verification. I don't know if this comes on as default on the Maxtor drives, but this would speed things up, too -- maybe even double, depending upon the method of write verification the drive used (or maybe no gains if it verifies near simultaneously with the write).

Not just that, but they tested a WHOPPER version of this drive. A 160 gig monster. I think they use 40 gig platters, so that makes for a 4 platter drive (and the 40 gigger, a 1 platter drive). And, if I remember correctly, the bigger drives are these days, the faster they tend to be... because they can try to read and write from all platters simultaneously. 4 platters being faster than 1. It's like a simple form of Raid 0 inside the drive. Now, I'm not saying you'll get a 400% gain due this drive having 4 platters. In fact, I can't say what the gain will be. The 40 might only be 10% slower, in fact. It might be LIKE a simple form of raid inside the drive, but certainly don't get raid like gains -- just mild (but still noticable!) ones.

In any case, the 160gig d540x turned out to be about 18% slower than it's 80 gig (dual platter) d740x (7200rpm) cousin in a web server benchmark.

If you look at the logs of a web server running vbulletin, you'll definitely see what a drag the hard drive is (at any speed) during busy times. An 18% improvement is a welcome one, especially at $3-$10.

Oh, sure, more money can get you a nice SCSI RAID setup, and give you mega-performance for mega-bucks. But 18% $3-$10 is pretty darned compelling, too.

Keep in mind that not all RS servers even use the d540x. When searching the archives, I saw some other brands mentioned. So depending on what they bought and what's available, you might not even be lucky enough to get this particular model of drive.

Ultimately, be careful of being penny wise, pound foolish -- and be careful of the people you work with being that way, too. Your life is short enough without that kind of unwisdom, within yourself or those you work/associate with, reducing the quality of that already short life.

[Salty Wagyu]

RPMs isn't everything. Platter size contributes a lot to how fast it will read data at. There is one site I know of that has built up a database of platter sizes: http://rml527.blogspot.co.uk/

Saying that, my 2TB WD Green 5400rpm which has 667GB platters is almost as fast as my 1TB Spinpoint F3 7200rpm which has 500GB platters; 15MB/sec difference give or take.

[xanonline]

but if they use the same amount of platters the 1tb drive has the same amount of information in half the space so less work to fetch the data, and the RPMs of the other drive isnt twice that of the smaller drive.

What the? :s

I don't know where to start... lol. The 1TB wouldn't have the same amount of information in half the space - it would have half the information in the same space. The "other drive" is the 2TB one which is slower (5400rpm) so of course it doesn't have twice the RPM as the 7200rpm 1TB... :/

Thanks for that - but unfortunately it's 10 years old, doesn't take into account the cache and it's about 4 platters vs. 1, whereas in this case it would be 3 vs. 2.

RPMs isn't everything. Platter size contributes a lot to how fast it will read data at.

Exactly why I posted this question. Many of the other replies seem to only be taking into account RPM. The 1TB would be 2x 500GB platters and the 2TB with 3x 667GB.

Thanks for the link.

[ScorpioRGc1]

This wasn't the same comparison I saw back when I was buying my first F4 nor is it for the drives you are looking at, but it does show RPM isn't everything:

http://www.overclock.net/t/942504/samsung-f3-1tb-7200rpm-vs-samsung-f4-2tb-5400rpm#post_12405725

Basically, it showed that while the Samsung F3 is slightly faster than the F4, the difference is negligible. And the F4 has a faster burst speed in that comparison to boot. Frankly, I'd just get the larger drive for the extra capacity even if it is for a boot drive unless you're sensitive to subtle speed differences.

[xanonline]

This wasn't the same comparison I saw back when I was buying my first F4 nor is it for the drives you are looking at, but it does show RPM isn't everything:

http://www.overclock...m#post_12405725

Basically, it showed that while the Samsung F3 is slightly faster than the F4, the difference is negligible. And the F4 has a faster burst speed in that comparison to boot. Frankly, I'd just get the larger drive for the extra capacity even if it is for a boot drive unless you're sensitive to subtle speed differences.

Thanks, that's what I'm looking for. Specifics are impossible to find, and this sort of thing is close enough. Thanks for your help. :)

[Shadrack]

I'd say, get the 2TB drive and if you don't like the performance on it, invest in an SSD later on as an OS/Software drive and the performance boost will be much much more noticeable than the difference in speed between the 5400rpm and 7200rpm.

[xanonline]

I'd say, get the 2TB drive and if you don't like the performance on it, invest in an SSD later on as an OS/Software drive and the performance boost will be much much more noticeable than the difference in speed between the 5400rpm and 7200rpm.

Who said I'm buying anything?

Again, I just wanted to know the speed differences, if any. That is all. :)

I don't understand why when someone asks a question on tech forums, everyone assumes they are going to buy something and their replies tell the OP what they should buy, often telling them to buy something that has nothing to do with their actual question, in this case RAID and SSDs. It's a bit like when someone asks a simple question about Windows XP and half the replies are "GET WINDOWS 7!". It doesn't answer the question. -____-

Thanks, but I'm not buying a drive and I already have an SSD.

[Shadrack]

Well, if you have access to both drives why don't you benchmark them both?

Generally people ask questions in this forum because they are looking for purchasing advice.

People have already answered your question, and if you really don't want any additional feedback ask a forum moderator to close the thread for you. Other people may have invested interest in the discussion. Threads within an Internet forum such as Neowin are meant to be useful to everyone, not just the OP and it isn't like anyone is going completely OT.

I understand and respect that you weren't looking for my answer, but I don't know the extent of the question you are asking. I could just take your original post at face value, but lots of folks try to read between the lines and it is perfectly reasonable for them to do so.

If you don't think a particular post adds any value to what you are looking for, might I suggest that you just ignore it and only engage in the discussion with people who are actually providing the insight you are interested in?

[xanonline]

Well, if you have access to both drives why don't you benchmark them both?

Generally people ask questions in this forum because they are looking for purchasing advice.

People have already answered your question, and if you really don't want any additional feedback ask a forum moderator to close the thread for you. Other people may have invested interest in the discussion. Threads within an Internet forum such as Neowin are meant to be useful to everyone, not just the OP and it isn't like anyone is going completely OT.

I understand and respect that you weren't looking for my answer, but I don't know the extent of the question you are asking. I could just take your original post at face value, but lots of folks try to read between the lines and it is perfectly reasonable for them to do so.

If you don't think a particular post adds any value to what you are looking for, might I suggest that you just ignore it and only engage in the discussion with people who are actually providing the insight you are interested in?

I don't know what makes you think I have access to both drives. If I did, I wouldn't be asking such questions. Where do you get this stuff from? :/

Generally they are looking for purchasing advice, but that's not a reason for making assumptions.

Threads can be useful for others besides the OP, but when someone asks a question and you reply, your reply is obviously directed at the OP unless otherwise stated.

It's not that I wasn't looking for your answer, it's that so many others gave similar responses and I already made clear that I'm simply after information regarding speed differences. It's like people reply before even reading other people's comments. Sure I can ignore them, but just because their initial response is not what I wanted doesn't mean they are unhelpful or can't answer my question - all I'm doing is clarifying my question by pointing out that I'm not after purchasing advice, and that is all.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Why?

RPMs govern how fast the platters in the drive will spin. The faster the platters are spinning the less time it takes for the head to land on the sector holding data you're requesting. So, a faster RPM drive will always have lower seek times (which is one part of the performance equation). A drive of higher aerial density will always access data faster than an equal drive with a lower aerial density (the second part of the performance equation, cache and other features play a role as well).

So, the question becomes what part of the performance equation is more important to you? If you need faster access to random data (your data isn't always sequential) then you should opt for the faster RPM drive, even at the expense of lower drive throughput. Otherwise, you should opt for the higher aerial density drive which will give you faster raw data transfer speeds when reading sequential data.

Also, be sure to check the drive specifications directly. Just because a drive is double the capacity doesn't mean it is double the aerial density of a smaller capacity drive (or similar).

Hopefully that helps.

[xanonline]

Hopefully that helps.

It certainly does, thanks. :)

[Axel]

I'm a bit late on board here but have you got the exact model numbers of the drives you're looking at? They may very well be on http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/ for you to make a comparison.

[xanonline]

I'm a bit late on board here but have you got the exact model numbers of the drives you're looking at? They may very well be on http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/ for you to make a comparison.

Not late at all :) - I'm just seeking general information. Thanks for the link, very useful - I thought I had seen something like this in the past but couldn't remember what it was. Cheers!