What does a higher RPM do?

[computernewbie]

just asking what a higher RPM do, does it increase game performance and how fast you run programs?

 

[jaguarskx]

No.

Higher RPMs generally means faster load and save times.

 

[sub mesa]

Higher RPM means faster moving mechanical components (the platters), this means the latency (delay) can be shorter, when performing a seek operating to find the place you want to read or write. Since HDDs are very fast in actually reading/writing, but very slow when seeking to the right location, faster RPM is one way to cope with this problem.

But you can't hide fundamental flaws in the technology, ans even high RPM disk will get beaten by modern SSDs in both realistic and laboratory benchmarks.

In reality, the 10.000rpm Velociraptor is a nice alternative to the expensive and low-capacity but high-performance SSDs available right now (OCZ vertex & Intel X25-M). But i believe all systems should rely on flash storage for the system disk, and only pure data storage should be handled by mechanical disks, if possible in a redundant configuration.

 

[vinman]

On what?

 

[IzzyCraft]

in fans they can make it really loud but move a ton of air. But that's what a quality sound system is for to drown out the fans

 

[geofelt]

RPM is short for revolutions per minute.

In fans, higher rpm's means the fan spins faster, pushing more air, at the expense of more noise.

In hard drives it means the drive spins faster, reducing the latency, which is the time for the data to come under the read/write heads. It is defined as the time for half of a revolution. It does not directly equate to higher data transfer rates, which is commonly assumed. The data transfer rate is a function of both the density of the drive, the rpm, and weather the data is near the axis of the drive, or the periphery.

 

[kingnoobe]

Look like geo beat me to it, and did a better job explaining it lol.

 

[computernewbie]

i see, that sort-of what i thought, lol.

SSD's are faster than HDD's but much more costly x.x, rather i just ttake two velocirapters and stick em in RAID 0

Hehe, im gonna have to learn how to make particions of my drive, someone made a post on how to but i lost it, was really helpful, split it all up and half of the drive was the peripheral sides of the disk

 

[geofelt]

There is generally no real world(vs. synthetic transfer rate benchmarks) performance advantage to raid of any kind.
Go to www.storagereview.com at this link: http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.php?page=SingleDriveVsRaid0
There are some specific applications that will benefit, but
gaming is not one of them. Even if you have an application which reads one input file sequentially, and writes
it out, you will perform about as well by putting the input on one drive, and the output on the other.

If you have two velociraptors, use one for the os and programs, and the other for storage. I would get a larger, slower, cheaper drive for storage instead.
By the end of the year, I expect that a SSD will become a better competitive solution for the OS/program drive.

What do you want to accomplish by partitioning? Most of the time, it is better to let the OS manage the whole drive.

 

[computernewbie]

i heard by particining the rest of the half of your drive, like you've used 250 GB and have 250GB, let the other half like use less of it, since its made in the peripherals of your HDD, duno if its true

 

[computernewbie]

So a higher RPM will decrease the time it takes me to download something?

 

[nikclev]

So a higher RPM will decrease the time it takes me to download something?

No.

Assuming we are talking about disk drives here, higher RPM only increases the time it takes to read or write to your disk drive. (In effect. The actual speedup is in the time it takes to find the correct place to read/write on the hard drive)

The speed at which you can download something is (almost always) dependent on the speed of your internet connection. I suppose there are possible cases of a combination of a really slow (old) computer with an insanely fast internet connection, but I would think that such a case is very nearly impossible to find.

i heard by particining the rest of the half of your drive, like you've used 250 GB and have 250GB, let the other half like use less of it, since its made in the peripherals of your HDD, duno if its true

Partitioning your hard drive merely makes your hard drive look like two (or more) hard drives as far as your operating system(s) are concerned. Very useful in many applications, such as dual booting or keeping the system drive (that has your OS on it) separate from your data (games, music, etc..)

 

[smithereen]

You meant decreasing the time it takes, right?