Advice on 5400 vs 7200RPM

[riv3r]

I currently have a
Western Digital WD1600BEVT
160 GB
5400RPM
SATA (3Gbps)
8MB cache

hard disk on my Dell laptop. I recently bought another

2.5" Western Digital WD Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT
750 GB SATA
3 GB/s
7200 RPM
16 MB Cache

I was reading on some threads and other forums and saw that at times 5400RPM HDD's will outperform 7200's. So I'm not sure whether now to make my 5400 primary drive with OS installed in it or to use the 7200. Advice me please. Thanks!

 

[andrewcarr]

The 7200 drive in most cases will be faster and in this case is, the black series is WD's fastest 7200 drives.

 

[tokencode]

There are more factors in harddrive performance than just rotational speed. Data density on the platters also makes a huge difference. While it's true newer 5400rpm drives may very well outperform older 7200rpm drives, all else being equal, 7200rpm drives are significantly faster. In your specific case the 7200 is significantly faster than your 5400rpm.

 

[Syopsis317]

As i know of, the Western Digital Scorpio Black will be MUCH faster than the other 5700 RPM drive. Probably because it is more recent, but also because it is the Black version, which is made to be a bit more performant (E.g: Compared to a Green WD HDD, or Blue, the only difference is Black version consumes more Energy than a Green one will.), I'd definately go with the Scorpio Black! Goodluck!