7200RpM vs. 15000RpM

[draggar]

Has anyone seen the difference between the two?

I'm debating between getting one or the other for my next drive (for a primary - OS etc..). I know the 15000's are expensive (well, only about $1 a gig now, not bad) but I'm wondering if it is worth the difference in price?

[sld72382]

Why don't you just get a Western Digital Velociraptor? It's 10,000rpm and it'll cost less and provide a good balance between speed and cost.

[draggar]

Prices from NewEgg:

10,000 RpM 300GB - $229 (WD)
15,000 RpM 300GB - $310-$320 (Fijutsu / Hitachi).

Not much of a difference in price if you really ask me - especially when the 7200 RpM drives are mostly uncer $60 for the 300 GB.

[Geek King]

I guess the real question is, do you need that kind of speed from your drive? What are you running on it that saving some load time here and there will make a significant difference?

Of course, if you're doing it just because i sounds neat when it spins that fast, or you just like to have the latest and greatest, I withdraw my questions.

[crashhelmet]

I agree with Geek King. Unless your'e running a file server of some sort, you really don't need that kind of speed.

CH

[draggar]

I agree with Geek King. Unless your'e running a file server of some sort, you really don't need that kind of speed.

CH

That's the kind of answer I was looking for. If it's not going to make much of a difference then I might as well go with the 7200 RpM.

Nothing serious - Windows, Creative Suite, Office, etc..

[Chromatix]

I don't actually think there's much life left in the >7200rpm market any more. SSDs are faster by a larger margin, and available in large enough capacities, and the only problem is the price.

I have a 10k rpm IBM UltraStar somewhere. It was noticeably faster than a contemporary 7200rpm drive, but most of that was from an accelerated seek time (5ms vs. 9ms) rather than the spin speed itself, with an additional boost from it being SCSI rather than IDE.

[Jack T. Chance]

In real world tests reported by Maximum PC magazine and other tech reviewers, modern 7,200 RPM performance hard drives sized at 1 TB and greater are just as fast, overall, as a Western Digital Velociraptor running at 10,000 RPM, which gives you only 300 GB of storage. In certain tasks, they've even been known to outperform the Velociraptor!

The secret to getting performance that good from a 7,200 RPM hard drive? Do NOT get any of the power saving hard drives, such as the Western Digital Green series. They sacrifice performance in the name of being ecologically "green" by using less power. You want a Western Digital BLACK, they'll give you the performance you want, with tons of storage space, and at an affordable price.

On the other hand... a 15,000 RPM drive should theoretically outperform everything. But when the drive spins at a higher speed, it generates more heat (which is why the Velociraptor has that huge heat sink attached to it, the removal of which voids your warranty! ) and it may wear out faster. Basically, the faster it spins, the faster it'll build up wear and tear that'll eventually cause it to stop working. And you're talking about a drive that spins twice as fast as the typical hard drive. So, yeah, you'll gain amazingly fast read and write times, but be prepared to have to replace the drive in only 2-3 years.

[draggar]

My secondary drive is a WD "green" 1TB drive - I use it for data storage (music, documents, pictures, etc..). 5400 RpM is just fine for that.

The "power savers" I've seen just run at 5400 RpM - I haven't seen any 7200 (but I really haven't looked).

I know my drive crash was heat related (if I leave it "off" and unplugged for about 24 hours then I can re-connect it with my SATA-USB converter and have about 10-20 minutes of it working to get some data off - then it goes out, again - just like the 500GB external I had - both drives were WD. I think the "spare" I had was a Seagate). Sadly, I may start shying away from WD drive sbecause of this - two have heat issues when they're relatively new (the 500GB was less than 2 years old and this one was less than 2.5 years old).

I've noticed (at work) that heat isues are becoming an issue with many manufacturers (Fijutsu, Samsung, Hitachi, WD, Seagate are the ones I see 99% of the time in our laptops). Yes, laptops are prone to heat issues more than the regular PC but I don't think I should see them as often.

So, who makes good drives now? Seagate? Samsung? I think having two drives go less than 3 years old is NOT the norm - especially in a home computer setting (non-laptop).

[Jack T. Chance]

Okay, now I'm thoroughly confused. Which are you using, a desktop PC, or a laptop?

The overheating is NOT normal, but there ARE steps you can take to help the hard drive stay cool. It just depends on which type of computer you're using. Let me know what kind it is, and I'll give you some advice on cooling that would be appropriate for that type of machine.

[draggar]

My home computer is a desktop (well, mini tower technically). At work I support a lot of PCs - mostly laptops (but some desktops).

In my home PC now I have two drives - a Seagate 160Gb 7200 RpM drive as the primary (for OS, programs, etc..) and a WD "green" 1Tb 5400RpM drive for data storange (music, documents, pictures, downloads, etc..).

True - overheating shouldn't be normal but:
First I had a 500Gb (needed AC power) external go out before it was two years old - overheating (when I opened up the case the drive almost burned my hand 30 minutes after it was disconnected).

Next, the drive that came with my PC - WD 7200 RpM 160GB internal (SATA) overheated. It doesn't get a shot but if I leave it off for about 24 hours I can connect it with my SATA - USB converter and have about 15-20 minutes of connectivity.

Two WDs in a row overheated. For 5 years at work I used a Maxtor external (non-AC) 60 GB drive - it died once in the warranty period and they sent me a replacement but the replacement wa sa trooper until earlier this year it started to have power issues. Yes, the drive still works but it beeps on ocasion which indicates power issues.

I got a WD portable 500Gb drive (no-AC) as a replacement and a nice case to protect it from being banged around in my lapotp bag. My fear is the 1TB drive - it's less than a year old but I feel I need to start shopping now for a new drive so I can move the data over to the new drive.

[Chromatix]

As far as reliability goes, it's actually wise to assume that any drive will fail eventually. You should therefore keep a backup of anything irreplacable.

The result is that some of my machines are backed up, and others aren't - because I know I can get back the data on them. Either because I can recreate it easily, or because I have install disks, or because I can download it all.

[Jack T. Chance]

My home computer is a desktop (well, mini tower technically). At work I support a lot of PCs - mostly laptops (but some desktops).

In my home PC now I have two drives - a Seagate 160Gb 7200 RpM drive as the primary (for OS, programs, etc..) and a WD "green" 1Tb 5400RpM drive for data storange (music, documents, pictures, downloads, etc..).

True - overheating shouldn't be normal but:
First I had a 500Gb (needed AC power) external go out before it was two years old - overheating (when I opened up the case the drive almost burned my hand 30 minutes after it was disconnected).

Next, the drive that came with my PC - WD 7200 RpM 160GB internal (SATA) overheated. It doesn't get a shot but if I leave it off for about 24 hours I can connect it with my SATA - USB converter and have about 15-20 minutes of connectivity.

Two WDs in a row overheated. For 5 years at work I used a Maxtor external (non-AC) 60 GB drive - it died once in the warranty period and they sent me a replacement but the replacement wa sa trooper until earlier this year it started to have power issues. Yes, the drive still works but it beeps on ocasion which indicates power issues.

I got a WD portable 500Gb drive (no-AC) as a replacement and a nice case to protect it from being banged around in my lapotp bag. My fear is the 1TB drive - it's less than a year old but I feel I need to start shopping now for a new drive so I can move the data over to the new drive.

In the case of the desktop drives, if they're overheating in your tower, the tower you have obviously isn't keeping them cool enough. You need a new tower, one that has a fan mount in front of the hard drive cage. I have such a tower, and although I don't have a fan there, it's because none of my hard drives have ever had problems with overheating. But if I were to get a Velociraptor, you better believe an 80 mm fan would be going in that mount, to keep cool air flowing over the hard drive(s). Get yourself a good Antec tower that allows you to have a fan blowing across the hard drives, that should solve that problem.

As for the external hard drive, the problem there is most likely the housing that the drive is mounted in. A good external enclosure (Laptop magazine recommends mounting your old PC hard drive in an Antec MX-100) will be made of aluminum, and will act as a heat sink to keep your hard drive cool. A poorly designed one will obviously allow the drive to overheat, as you've learned first hand. There's also the larger enclosures that are able to mount multiple hard drives, for use as a networked backup drive. I'm not entirely sure, but there may be some of those that allow fans to be used for cooling. You could look into that for your external drive(s).

For the laptops, the secret is to ELEVATE the laptop, to increase the airflow underneath. The cooling fan intakes are on the bottom, and the vent slots over the hard drive(s) are, too. But the laptop manufacturers have them sit so close to the surface they're on, that there isn't enough airflow underneath to allow proper cooling. For that reason, all laptop users should be looking into solutions that elevate their laptop for increased airflow. For my 17" gaming laptop, I use a Rolodex Laptop Stand that's made of wire mesh, so that air can flow through it, but even a simpler solution like the wonderfully designed LapWorks Laptop Legs will do the trick.

In extreme cases where even elevating it doesn't solve the problem, that laptop may need to be paired up with a USB powered laptop cooling stand that has fans in it. The only problem I've personally found with those is that the fans don't always line up with the locations of the vent slots on most laptops. Take mine, for instance. Here's what she looks like underneath...



As you can see, all the vents/fan intakes are out near the edges of the machine. But most of the laptop cooling stands put their fans in the center, where they'd be blowing on nothing but solid plastic, in my case. They wouldn't actually cool the hard drives, what with their vent slots being under the wrist rest, at the front of the machine. But that's what the design is on MY laptop. Every laptop's different, there's no consistency with the placement of vents and fan intakes. It's different on every laptop I've seen. So, with those problem laptops, try simple elevation first. If that doesn't work, try a cooling stand with fans built-in, but before you do, try to figure out exactly where the vent slots are for the hard drive(s) and instruct the user to position the fan directly under those vent slots if at all possible.

Hope that helps.

[draggar]

I know the laptops and I have mine at work in docking stations so they're elevated (a little) and whenever one is in I *always* give the vents a good blowing plus if I'm opening it - I make sure that the fan and heat sink is cleaned out and no matter how much I tell them my users still love to use their laptops at home, in beds (blankets are such great insulators - aren't they and they're fluffy enough to cover ALL of the vents!!).

My PC case has no room for fans next to the drives - but I do make sure the vents near the HDD are clear. Here is the PC I got:
http://www.dell.com/us/en/dfh/deskto...20&cs=22&s=dfh

With the internal view you can see the indentation in the front (towards the left) - that's all ventilation plus ventilation slots by the drives These can easily get clogged with dust and dog hair and I check them whenever I think of it (couple times a week) to make sure that they're clean and air can flow easily though them.

The terabuyte drive is in the second 5.25" bay down - just below the CD Rom drive (I don't have brackets to put it by the main one) - maybe I'll get something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835888311

For it (unless people have better suggestions).

I'd like to get another case but I don't have the $$$ for a case - especially one with a lot of room for drives and fans. The PC is 2.5 years old to, maybe it is time to swap some PCs around and start shopping for a "new" PC (Dell Outlet usually has good deals).

[csquared]

I am running a mirrored, Seagate 500GB, 7200 RPM , SATA drives in my desktop. Very good response and it keeps the heat down.

Most of those 10K & 15K drives are "server quality". You could get an overheat problem with most desktop cases. They don't have the ventilation for 10K & 15K drives. My mini tower doesn't even have breather holes in front of the drives.

If you are looking for performance, get eight of the cheaper 7200 SATA drives and set them up in a RAID 10. Supermicro has a sweet 5 drive, SATA/SAS drive enclosure, CSE-M35T.