5400 vs 7200 question

[Scootel2]

I am building a new computer. The OS drive will be SSD and I plan on moving the "Users" folder to a HDD that is being mirrored. Will I notice a difference using a 5400 rpm drive verses a 7200 rpm drive? Thanks

 

[ripken204]

i would go with a 7200rpm drive
keep in mind the users folder has most of your data (desktop, documents)
obviously you want to access those as fast as possible

 

[Red Falcon]

I doubt you will notice any difference to be honest with you.

A I look at 7200RPM drives this way: 25% performance gain for 50% higher power consumption.
The only real advantage a 7200RPM drive will have is the seek times for lots of smaller files.

keep in mind the users folder has most of your data (desktop, documents)

If we are talking pics and word documents, or music/video files, you won't notice any difference between the drives.

Where you will see a difference is with databases, video editing, etc which require a good seek time.

 

[adi]

Keep in mind that modern 5400 drives are faster than the 7200 drives of ~4 years ago, and can average 100MB/s and peak at 140MB/s.

It depends on what you do with your "users" folder, but most likely 5400rpm will suffice.

 

[Scootel2]

Keep in mind that modern 5400 drives are faster than the 7200 drives of ~4 years ago, and can average 100MB/s and peak at 140MB/s.

It depends on what you do with your "users" folder, but most likely 5400rpm will suffice.

Store files, music, and pictures

 

[adi]

Store files, music, and pictures

As long as you aren't doing heavy encoding/etc, or have multiple photo folders with 30,000 images in each and do lots of processing on them, 5400rpm drives should be fine.

 

[dustNbone]

Agree. If it's just the Users folder, the difference will be minimal. If you were planning to offload say, temp files or pagefile I'd say go 7200.

 

[Old Hippie]

A I look at 7200RPM drives this way: 25% performance gain for 50% higher power consumption.

Just curious, any links for that 50% higher power consumption?

I've always read that the slightly higher power usage was offset by the higher speed to create more idle time and negates the higher power usage over a 5400rpm.