5200 RPM vs 7200 RPM

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akocli

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Oct 8, 2015
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I have to decide whether to buy a 5200 rpm HDD or a 7200 HDD.
I already have a small SSD, so I'm not worried with loading times for OS or games.

My main focus is in storing my files.
Are 5200 rpm HDD are more reliable, or the reliability is so insignificance that it won't really matter?
 
Solution
IInuyasha74


None of that is true. Traditionally 5,400 RPM drives have demonstrated greater reliability. The parts are under less stress because they do the work slower, they use less power usually, and they generate less heat. 7,200 RPM drives have classically been chosen over 5,400 RPM drives only for faster performance.

Today, technology has advanced quite a bit to the point that the difference in how fast the drives wear out is negligible. Therefore the 7,200 RPM drive is the better choice because it does have a small performance advantage over the...
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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None of that is true. Traditionally 5,400 RPM drives have demonstrated greater reliability. The parts are under less stress because they do the work slower, they use less power usually, and they generate less heat. 7,200 RPM drives have classically been chosen over 5,400 RPM drives only for faster performance.

Today, technology has advanced quite a bit to the point that the difference in how fast the drives wear out is negligible. Therefore the 7,200 RPM drive is the better choice because it does have a small performance advantage over the 5,400 RPM drive, but reliability is not higher than 5,400 RPM drives.

Instead, the specific drives you are considering should be investigated as different models may have inherent design flaws that make them worse, or may have shown to perform exceedingly well and reliable. You can't judge universally based on RPM.
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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This is an important aspect to consider too. If they are about the same price, 7,200 RPM is better because of the small performance advantage.

If the 7,200 RPM costs more, which is usually the case, it isn't worth it. The performance advantage isn't anything spectacular.
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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I'm not sure what you mean by a "giveaway" box, but none of what you are saying is making sense to me.

First, you keep calling the 5,400 RPM drives laptop hard drives. There are plenty of 3.5" desktop hard drives that run at 5,400 RPM. Here is an example of one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5AD2FA2226

But you can find dozens of them.

Second, RAM usage isn't going to change between if you have 2 GB of RAM or 3 GB of RAM. If you have less RAM, the system may have to access files more frequently, but it isn't going to be noticeably slower between the two drives. Web browsing doesn't really use the storage device, so that really doesn't change anything. It would be noticeably slower than you have less RAM in most cases, but that is a RAM issue.
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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I've ran Windows 7 and Windows 8 with 2, 4, 8, and 16 GB of RAM, and yes Windows makes greater use of the paging system when you have more RAM available. But, this isn't a question about how much RAM the user needs to have, it is about what hard drive. If he only has 2 GB of RAM then he is going to experience considerable lag regardless because of heavy use of the page file. The transfer speed on a 7,200 RPM hard drive isn't going to be high enough to negate the negative impact of using the page file and will seem little better than a 5,400 RPM drive in that scenario.
 
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JohnnyLucky

JohnnyLucky

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akocli - Your original question is about hard disk drive reliability. The answer is there are some older 5200 rpm hard disk drives that have proven to be quite reliable. Unfortunately, those older 5200 rpm models have been replaced by 7,200 rpm and 10,000 rpm hard drives that have a SATA 3 6Gb/s interface and a larger cache.
 
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William Langton

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Mar 20, 2013
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Hitachi "Coolspin" drives run at 5400rpm and are the most durable and longest-lasting drives available. My experience with these drives is very good and I don't notice any performance issues compared to 7200rpm drives, though I'm not a demanding user in that regard. Western Digital has acquired Hitachi, however, and I'm not sure how their products might change as a result. Hopefully they will use Coolspin in their other drive lines but this sort of information is not easy to obtain.
 
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