Does 7200rpm have a noticeable advantage over 5400rpm?

[Radioactive Snowman]

So I am in need of more storage for my pc and I have settled on 4TB's being enough to last a while. The drives im looking at (seagate barracudas) come in 2tb 7200rpm variants or a 4tb 5400rpm variant. 

 

Is there a noticeable speed difference between 5400 and 7200rpm as going for the two 2TB drives is slightly more expensive. 

 

They will be used for games and other misc files and the like

[TheGlenlivet]

According to Seagate - 

Given two identically designed hard drives with the same areal densities, a 7200 RPM drive will deliver data about 33% faster than the 5400 RPM drive.

[Windows7ge]

There is a noticeable improvement. You get about an extra 40~50MB/s and seek times are better but that only matters in time sensitive applications.

 

If you feel you could use about a 30% read/write improvement then it's worth it. If you don't feel 30% is much for your use case then opt for double the storage.

[Dedayog]

Just now, TheGlenlivet said:

According to Seagate - 

Given two identically designed hard drives with the same areal densities, a 7200 RPM drive will deliver data about 33% faster than the 5400 RPM drive.

Wait a minute, so an actual math-based increase?  That's kind cool.  

[MarbleHornets]

If you're using it with system files, then I'd suggest the faster speeds, but if its just for storage or a nas, there's no point really unless they're the same price.

[Princess Luna]

I'd say it's worth it if you have the alternative.

[Radioactive Snowman]

 

Just now, MarbleHornets said:

If you're using it with system files, then I'd suggest the faster speeds, but if its just for storage or a nas, there's no point really unless they're the same price.

Its just for games and random storage, I have my OS and a couple games on an ssd, its just too expensive to justify going all SSD storage for the amount I'd need

[Radioactive Snowman]

3 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

There is a noticeable improvement. You get about an extra 40~50MB/s and seek times are better but that only matters in time sensitive applications.

 

If you feel you could use about a 30% read/write improvement then it's worth it. If you don't feel 30% is much for your use case then opt for double the storage.

 

1 minute ago, Princess Luna said:

I'd say it's worth it if you have the alternative.

I know its hard to guess but would you think there would be a noticeable difference in game load times?  

 

I expect two drives spinning at 7200 to be a lot louder than one drive at 5400 so I'm leaning towards that unless theres a big difference

[MarbleHornets]

Just now, Radioactive Snowman said:

 

Its just for games and random storage, I have my OS and a couple games on an ssd, its just too expensive to justify going all SSD storage for the amount I'd need

Then it's not going to be much of a noticeable difference, only around 20-30% faster, to really justify the price difference. I'd say to put your money more towards reliability (aka brands that tend to last longer, but as it's a lottery system with HDD, longer warranties) than speed.

[WereCat]

For your usage it doesn't really matter but the sequential speed difference is there. 

[Windows7ge]

Just now, Radioactive Snowman said:

 

I know its hard to guess but would you think there would be a noticeable difference in game load times?  

 

I expect two drives spinning at 7200 to be a lot louder than one drive at 5400 so I'm leaning towards that unless theres a big difference

Considering what you'd probably be paying for the drive why not buy a SSD and use the HDD for misc storage? Performance wise it'd make a huge difference and wouldn't add any noise at all. Depending on the capacity of the SSD it may only cost you the same amount (you won't get the same capacity from it though).

[MarbleHornets]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

Considering what you'd probably be paying for the drive why not buy a SSD and use the HDD for misc storage? Performance wise it'd make a huge difference and wouldn't add any noise at all. Depending on the capacity of the SSD it may only cost you the same amount (you won't get the same capacity from it though).

 

7 minutes ago, Radioactive Snowman said:

 

Its just for games and random storage, I have my OS and a couple games on an ssd, its just too expensive to justify going all SSD storage for the amount I'd need

He already is......

[Radioactive Snowman]

3 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Considering what you'd probably be paying for the drive why not buy a SSD and use the HDD for misc storage? Performance wise it'd make a huge difference and wouldn't add any noise at all. Depending on the capacity of the SSD it may only cost you the same amount (you won't get the same capacity from it though).

I'm limiting myself to around £100 so I could order 4TB in HDD, 1TB in just SSD or 2.5TB if I mixed SSD and HDD. I already have 1 SSD at 500gb. I'm still trying to decide what the best option would be. 

[r2724r16]

13 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

Wait a minute, so an actual math-based increase?  That's kind cool.  

Isn't it common sense that 7200 / 5400 = 1.333, meaning that a 7200 RPM HDD is 33.3% faster than a 5400 RPM HDD?

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, MarbleHornets said:

 

He already is......

He did not say that in his original post, I was not quoted on the followup post......

 

1 minute ago, Radioactive Snowman said:

I'm limiting myself to around £100 so I could do 4TB in HDD, 1TB in just SSD or 2.5 if I mixed SSD and HDD. I already have 1 SSD at 500gb. I'm still trying to decide what the best option would be. 

Well higher RPM is going to equal faster load times (by about ~30%). You'll have to decide what's more important speed or capacity.

[Dedayog]

Just now, r2724r16 said:

Isn't it common sense that 7200 / 5400 = 1.333, meaning that a 7200 RPM HDD is 33.3% faster than a 5400 RPM HDD?

Yeah, but lots of times we get things that are big numbers for specs but little improvements.   it's nice to see that the actual data transfer is inline with the spinning rate.  

[Princess Luna]

11 minutes ago, Radioactive Snowman said:

I know its hard to guess but would you think there would be a noticeable difference in game load times?

Eh... it will load faster but what you consider noticeable is not necessarily what I'd consider noticeable... I would go for 7200RPM personally but that's the thing, 5400RPM will also work and if you want to cheap up just go with it... you'll live either ways and a current day brand new 5400RPM drive is still decent by every mean.

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, jstudrawa said:

Yeah, but lots of times we get things that are big numbers for specs but little improvements.   it's nice to see that the actual data transfer is inline with the spinning rate.  

Gotta weight in the fact sequential read/write is different than scattered and random read/write... lots of variables in here to consider real world performance improvements, the 33% faster is a rough estimation by every mean, specially when you start considering fragmentation and what not part of this equation.

[Radioactive Snowman]

1 minute ago, Princess Luna said:

Eh... it will load faster but what you consider noticeable is not necessarily what I'd consider noticeable... I would go for 7200RPM personally but that's the thing, 5400RPM will also work and if you want to cheap up just go with it... you'll live either ways and a current day brand new 5400RPM drive is still decent by every mean.

 

4 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

He did not say that in his original post, I was not quoted on the followup post......

 

Well higher RPM is going to equal faster load times (by about ~30%). You'll have to decide what's more important speed or capacity.

 

9 minutes ago, MarbleHornets said:

 

He already is......

Okay, I'm gonna go with the two 2TB drives, I dont want to lose out on speed if its only a couple pounds in the difference and at a quarter of what it would cost me to buy 4TB in SSD space I still think its my best option. Thanks for all the help guys

[YoFavRussian]

43 minutes ago, Radioactive Snowman said:

So I am in need of more storage for my pc and I have settled on 4TB's being enough to last a while. The drives im looking at (seagate barracudas) come in 2tb 7200rpm variants or a 4tb 5400rpm variant. 

 

Is there a noticeable speed difference between 5400 and 7200rpm as going for the two 2TB drives is slightly more expensive. 

 

They will be used for games and other misc files and the like

There is a noticeable difference, but it sounds like you may be able to put the 2 2TB drives in a raid 0 array for even more speed.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Depends.  A 7200RPM 120mm fan will move less air than a 5400RPM 200mm fan.

 

Oh, hang on, we're talking hard drives.

 

Yeah, two 2TB drives may be the better option.  Then again with RAID0 you're doubling the odds of losing your data. 

[Firewrath9]

12 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

Then again with RAID0 you're doubling the odds of losing your data. 

and also increase random write perf unless you use a good hardware raid setup