How much faster is 10,000 vs 7,200 RPM

Day03 · 6 Sep 2006 at 19:49

I've always had 7,200RPM hard drives so I cannot compare it to 10,000RPM raptor ones but I'm wondering if there is a big difference in doing everyday tasks? Is it worth spending more on such drives?

fobose · 6 Sep 2006 at 19:55

Well I'm going to make a smart arse comment and say 2,800RPM

I don't know what the 10k drives are like but there is deffinatly a noticable difference between 5,400rpm drives and 7,200rpm!

mosfet · 6 Sep 2006 at 19:59

As with many "which is better" questions posted on here, there's no simple answer.

I suggest you have a read of the THG Hard Drive charts and see for yourself:

http://tomshardware.co.uk/storage/charts.html

For example:
10000RPM 36gig Raptors are slower than many 7200RPM drives, yet the overall performance leader is the 150GB Raptor, spinning at the same speed.

Day03 · 6 Sep 2006 at 20:14

Thanks for the link, that clears up a few things.

I would like to hear from anyone who had a chance to compare both.

ted34 · 7 Sep 2006 at 00:37

The seagates 7200.10 are suppose to be quick as well with the perpendicular stuff

Greenlizard0 · 7 Sep 2006 at 00:51

The very first raptor 36 gig hard drives are terrible, and not that much better. Though the later versions are supposed to be a lot better.

Avalon · 7 Sep 2006 at 23:15

Compare the first Raptors to the 7.2k's of the time and they are fine, compare them to todays 7.2k's and a lot's changed over the last few years, it'd be like me comparing an old 1.4 Athlon to a 6800 Conroe.

4.2k - 5.4k is a massive difference, 5.4 - 7.2k is again very noticeable, 7.2k - 10k is slightly less noticeable in average desktop use. For my money it's a SCSI 10K boot drive combined with a SCSI 10 k scratch drive with a load of ATA/SATA 7.2k's for storage. It's amazing what a difference offloading IO from your boot drive makes to overall multitasking performance while doing IO intensive stuff.