5400rpm vs 7200rpm - do I care?

willoughbywilloughby
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
So I want to get a new HD for my Power Mac G4/450.



I plan on getting a pretty large drive (around 120 probably). I don't plan on storing any video or applications on this drive. Just raw data and documents. Basically all of my photos, word docs and pretty soon all of my CDs that I'm going to encode to Mp3.



Will I really notice a difference between 7200rpm and 5400rpm?



What about cache size? The cheaper drives all have 2mb cache but I see some with 8mb. It seems like a big difference.



Is it worth the extra money for 8mb cache and 7200rpm?



Thanks

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    cyclecycle Posts: 187member
    well..if u read and write on it a lot id go for 7200



    personally..i wouldnt go under 7200 anymore



    i dont know much about cache size here...i guess u wont need that..its more a thing ull need when using it with apps or os
  • Reply 2 of 6
    rodukroduk Posts: 706member
    I was thinking of asking a similar question, so perhaps I can put it in here rather than starting a new thread.



    As many drives seem to be ATA133/100/66, when installing a second drive is it worthwhile connecting it to an ATA133 controller on a PCI card, rather than connecting it as a slave drive on the existing ATA66 bus?



    Does having a second drive on the same bus significantly slow down the performance of both drives on that bus?



    In practice, will a 7200rpm drive on an ATA133 bus be significantly quicker than on an ATA66 bus, or is the limitation imposed by the rpm of the drive rather than the maximum theoretical throughput of the bus?



    Thanks.







    [ 03-14-2003: Message edited by: RodUK ]</p>
  • Reply 3 of 6
    madmax559madmax559 Posts: 596member
    get a seagate baracudda iv 80gb

    7200 rpm & its ata 133



    more importantly its extremely quiet

    dont worry about the cache size

    wd/maxtor makes ones with 8mb caches

    & ive lost quite a few maxtors/wd's recently

    to recommened them & they are also loud.



    <a href="http://www.storagereview.com"; target="_blank">www.storagereview.com</a>



    [quote]Originally posted by RodUK:

    <strong>I was thinking of asking a similar question, so perhaps I can put it in here rather than starting a new thread.



    As many drives seem to be ATA133/100/66, when installing a second drive is it worthwhile connecting it to an ATA133 controller on a PCI card, rather than connecting it as a slave drive on the existing ATA66 bus?



    Does having a second drive on the same bus significantly slow down the performance of both drives on that bus?



    In practice, will a 7200rpm drive on an ATA133 bus be significantly quicker than on an ATA66 bus, or is the limitation imposed by the rpm of the drive rather than the maximum theoretical throughput of the bus?



    Thanks.







    [ 03-14-2003: Message edited by: RodUK ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
  • Reply 4 of 6
    thuh freakthuh freak Posts: 2,664member
    [quote]Originally posted by RodUK:

    <strong>I was thinking of asking a similar question, so perhaps I can put it in here rather than starting a new thread.



    As many drives seem to be ATA133/100/66, when installing a second drive is it worthwhile connecting it to an ATA133 controller on a PCI card, rather than connecting it as a slave drive on the existing ATA66 bus?



    Does having a second drive on the same bus significantly slow down the performance of both drives on that bus?



    In practice, will a 7200rpm drive on an ATA133 bus be significantly quicker than on an ATA66 bus, or is the limitation imposed by the rpm of the drive rather than the maximum theoretical throughput of the bus?



    Thanks.







    [ 03-14-2003: Message edited by: RodUK ]</strong><hr></blockquote>



    i'm not sure if you'll notice, but i'm fairly certain that putting a ATA66 device on a previously 133 chain will lower the whole chain to 66. i dont know how noticeable this is though. but, i'd guess that you'll probably notice a fairly significant increase in disk access times. i'm pretty sure that 7200 can more than saturate ata66.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    kecksykecksy Posts: 1,002member
    [quote]Originally posted by thuh Freak:

    <strong>



    i'm not sure if you'll notice, but i'm fairly certain that putting a ATA66 device on a previously 133 chain will lower the whole chain to 66. i dont know how noticeable this is though. but, i'd guess that you'll probably notice a fairly significant increase in disk access times. i'm pretty sure that 7200 can more than saturate ata66.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    7200 RPM drives, until recently, had trouble saturating ata33. ata66 still gives you plenty of head room.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    mac os x addictmac os x addict Posts: 322member
    I just got a 40 GB 7200 rpm Western Digital drive and I just love it. It is quite and i noticed that OS X runs a lot faster on it than it did on my old 6 GB 5400 one. 7200 is just the way to go. Plus, some friends of mine got a 7200 with 8 MB cache and they said that OS X runs even better than on a 7200 with 2 MB cache. So it is just up to what you want



    Edit for spelling mistakes



    [ 03-15-2003: Message edited by: Mac OS X Addict ]</p>
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