7200 vs 5900 hard disks
 

Does it still matter? I hesitate between a 3TB 7200 HD and a 4TB 5900 HD. Almost same price, so let's pretend it is.

I can never have enough space, but I'm also very concerned with performance.

I've always been unhappy with 5400 HDs, but the last time I had one on a desktop machine was last decade, notebooks are a very different animal altogether, and this is a 5900rpm disk, which I never had.

Thank you for your opinion.

Note: please don't even mention SSDs. They're horribly expensive in my country. That option is NOT on the table.

is that 5400 or 5900 ? But anyway, in general: higher rpm may mean faster access to the content on the disk.

5900. They exist. I even said:

then

Since you are "very concerned with performance" and have "always been unhappy" with slow spinning hard drives, my advice is to get the fastest storage you can afford.

What about a small SSD for the operating system, and a larger HDD for data? Is that an option you've considered?

There's also hybrid drives. They are faster than a "pure" HDD in my experience. Not very reliable though that I've seen.

As to the actual question, yes, it most definitely matters. 7200 rpm will be noticeably faster than 5400 or 5900 rpm. While a 5900 rpm (I've never even HEARD of that rotational speed) will be quicker than the 5400, it's going to be a minor improvement. It's possible to even find 10,000 rpm drives depending on if you're getting 2.5" or 3.5" (they're rare as only a few were ever made for consumer sector, mostly they were Enterprise class drives).

There are even 15 Krpm drives, although (this was some years ago) I haven't seen them with SATA (they were SAS, Serial Access Scsi and we used them to make a 4 disk hardware RAID 5 volume for users home directories). So indeed, more like Enterprise class.
And yes, it certainly made a difference in access speed.

Well, I came here because the answers are usually very good, but this time it's not working. It's just not working.

That is obvious. Or is it?
I googled before asking and found many people sharing the opinion that the technology has changed and that rotation speed doesn't matter anymore. Whether that's true or not, it's clear that no one who's commented so far has any first hand experience but decided to share their random uninformed opinion anyway.

OH
MY
GOD.

Can you at least make an effort to at least imagine how many pages out of my Google search I closed immediately because some American decided to chime in to proclaim "YEAH, DUDE, LIKE, JUST GET AN SSD ALREADY YA KNOW" because I don't live in America, because SSDs are INSANELY expensive in my country of residence so that kind of "advice" is 100% useless in my specific case, and I even said so in my original question?

Can you at least read the last line on my original post? It is there for a reason. Why ignore it? What is the point?
I feel like I'm just being trolled here, plain and simple. But sure, some moderator is certainly going to say that I AM the one being rude.

Two seconds of Google will tell you they do exist and have become quite common.
But you don't have to Google. You don't know. You just don't know. You never even heard of it. You know just as much as I do. I actually know more since I know they exist. What am I supposed to do with the opinion of someone who knows just as much as I do—or less and has no additional insight to help me decide?

Uh... Yeah, OK. 15,000 is faster than 7200 and 5900. Wow. Who could have imagined THAT?! But at least now I can choose betw... um, no, I can't. I don't have the option for 15,000.

Just go ahead and call me rude, but prove that I don't have a point about the size of the Olympus Mons. This kind of treatment is appalling. Very disrespectful. Why mock me like that?

Exactly what?


Obviously the data can be accessed faster. But obviously the data is sometimes cached. So actually the real speed depends on the usage too.

5900 is Seagate's selection for A/V tuned drives. Having a faster disk won't get video files to or from a disk any faster than video apps can accept or supply them. Lower RPM means cooler temps and potentially longer life, thus improved reliability for the category of applications that includes recorders and players, including satellite and cable boxes and NAS devices intended to feed video players. They'll be slower than 7200 RPM drives if cloning from one to another, but you will experience no difference from 7200 over 5900 for playing or recording even the largest (4k/high bitrate) videos.

You ask a bikeshed question, you get bikeshed answers.
what did you expect.
still, people are fairly helpful and not really pushing the "just buy the latest gadget already" theme.

to answer your question:

• various aspects affect hard drive performance and speed. surely the rpm (rotation sper minute) is one of these aspects. Only individual model spec sheets can give definite answers
• risking annoying you even more, try to find out if you can't order an SSD online for relatively small money.
  This is how I do it:
  • my system is on a small, cheap SSD (128GB) that cost 40€ iirc. cheapest available.
  • all media and documents are on old spinning hard drives
  • all this is set up so that the old slow drives don't affect the boot process, or execution of programs
  • you need to SMART test the old hard drives. they tend to die slowly.

I was expecting answers from people who have had relevant first hand experience, not speculation. Is that asking too much?

Again: there is no such thing as "cheap SSD" in my country. Once I found one that was OH WELL STILL STEEP BUT MANAGEABLE, and I soon found people reporting that their machines became SLOWER with it, i.e. it was just a little less expensive because it was some very low quality knock-off. Importing is very expensive too. 65% tax on it plus shipping and a whole chain of international distribution plus 15 to 180 days in customs clearance. Possibly more. There are people who have been waiting for one year.

And I don't really see the point of an SSD. Booting faster? I boot four or five times a year. I put the machine to hibernate when I go to bed then I just wake it up in the morning so I hardly ever see the boot screen. Running applications faster? That might be nice, but not at that price. Storage capacity is just as important to me, and spinning disks give me a lot lot more bang for the buck than SSDs. You see, the whole point of my question (which should be obvious) is nothing more than my vain hope to get away with buying a 4TB drive instead of a 3TB for almost the same price and little to no loss in performance because I spotted some know-it-alls saying that rotation speed doesn't matter anymore. That's all. Again: I CAN'T AFFORD SSDS, and they don't fit the picture I am presenting. I'm fine with HDs. It's just a little indecision that results from what seemed to be a good opportunity.

Thank you for your answer. But please don't call me Shirley.

@OP, have you looked at this: https://hdd.userbenchmark.com/

Moderator Response
 

@OP

This LQ Rules applies to everyone;

Generally most respondents do provide helpful information. If you find one that has provided a personal opinion that you feel does not align with your request or forms a personal attack then either ignore that post or report if there is a violation so it can be addressed.

So you're dissappointed that people answered the question you asked instead of the many questions you MEANT to ask.


Yes, logical.


If anyone's being rude, it's the person who didn't ask the questions they wanted but got answers tot he questions they did ask but are complaining about said answers...

4TB will give you 33% more storage than 3TB. If large storage capacity is your #1 goal then I recommend the 4TB drive.