HD 7200RPM vs 5400RPM?

[Harry Simpson]

I'm updating my whole system before loading Vegas Pro 11. That's why this thread is here. The new machine has all updated tech bells and whistles Intel Core i7 64bit etc.

the hard drive i ordered was a
Samsung HD103SJ SATA 7200rpm 1TB with 32mb cache.. It was a bad drive.
I sent it back for a replacement and they sent a different drive-
Western Digital WD10EARS SATA 1TB with 64mb cache (5400rpm)

The slower rpm concerns me. Should I return this? Is the faster RPM going to make a difference in Sony Vegas Pro 11 use? Does twice the cache make up for the slower rpm

[Colin Rowe]

5400 will be fine, you are dealing with card based media. Faster spin with higher write speeds really come into there own when capturing video, from tape. I edit XDCam EX, AVCHD and 1080/50p footage with no problem using an i5 laptop, and relatively cheap WD USB 5400 external drives. Many will say you need a raid setup etc, really not necessary with footage on cards.

[Harry Simpson]

Thanks Colin

Got it up and running

Harry

[Jeff Harper]

If you're up and running, great. But I'll chime in and add that 5400rpm hard drives are the slowest drives available, and if it is a green drive it may have a built in sleep mode and will cause delays when the drive has been inactive. Some 5400 drives are better than others.

I personally would never want a 5400 rpm drive for my OS. I have about 20 different drives, and my WD 5400 green drive is nothing but headaches, so I use it only as a swappable drive for archiving large projects. It rests after brief periods of inactivity, and for editing it causes crashes. All 5400 rpm drive don't do this, and some are better than others, but still they are not for me, for sure.

Because you are talking about your OS, the type of media you are using is not relevant, because you shouldn't be using that drive for storing video anyway.

I would have been highly irritated had I been sent a 5400 drive instead of the 7200. But then Seagate quality control is so bad with their mainstream SATA drives you might be better off anyway.

[Gerald Webb]

+1 with Jeff here, def a bad idea as a system drive.
They are a great drive for back up and archiving, they do have a sleep mode, but if you go to
Control panel- System- Power options- Change plan settings-Change advanced power options- Hard disk,
Set hard drive sleep at 1 million hrs or something crazy.
Since doing this Ive never had that lag I used to get when you access a drive after a while.
For your Windows drive an SSD will open your eyes, they are so much faster and quite cheap now as well.
Mine is slower than this one and its still amazing,
OCZ Vertex 2 Series 120 GB Internal hard drive - 300 MBps

[Tom Roper]

I have a ssd and a 7200 rpm drive in my i7-64bit, and don't notice a large difference. The operating system and programs are loaded on the ssd, intermediate files when written to or read from seem not that much different from either one.

[Colin Rowe]

Originally Posted by Harry Simpson

Got it up and running

Harry

Thats all you need

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Gerald Webb

+1 with Jeff here, def a bad idea as a system drive.
They are a great drive for back up and archiving, they do have a sleep mode, but if you go to
Control panel- System- Power options- Change plan settings-Change advanced power options- Hard disk,
Set hard drive sleep at 1 million hrs or something crazy.

Actually, this is not the case for all "Green" drives: Their sleep mode is hardware/firmware-based - and the feature cannot be turned off or even changed at all. These drives will simply ignore the Windows hard drive sleep settings if they're set to longer than the drives' firmware-based sleep times.

[Kawika Ohumukini]

I've owned about 40 drives and 7200 RPM with a big cache is obviously faster than a 5400 with a tiny cache. 5400 for off-hour stuff mainly backups and 7200 for everything else. GL

[Jeff Harper]

Randall, regarding 5400 rpm green drives, that's what I thought also. Nothing can be done. It's particularly an issue for people using external drives that contain those drives, especially if they are editing. The companies do not tell buyers about it and users wonder why things freeze up when they try to access drives that have gone to "sleep". Some work better than others, some come out of sleep mode quicker than others, but overall for edting they are not good, for me anyway.

On the other hand, some 5400rpm drives (non-green drive) such as what Harry hopefully has, are relatively better than others. I have a 2tb 5400 rpm drive for storage. It is supposed to be relatively fast, but it is still much slower than a comparable 7200 drive that it is the backup for. It was supposed to be "so fast" and I bought it and it was just like all the rest, slow. Dumb on my part. I transfer 500-600gb sized files to and from it regularly, and yes the difference is quite plain. 90 minutes vs 40 minutes, or something like that. You really notice the diff on larger transfers.

If you're not used to fast drives, or have never had a blazingly fast system, or use mostly smaller files, then one might not know the difference or care. If you're used to using laptops with the slow drives they usually contain, then again, you may not care either.

Also so many other factors. What do you edit? How fast do you edit? Those that edit simple one camera family videos won't care so much. Others that edit 4 camera HD videos and who are in a hurry or on a deadline will notice things differently. How large are your files? If you're editing 6gb worth of video for a small project, who cares?

On the other hand, I recently replaced a 10K Velociraptor with a 15.7K rpm SAS drive, supposedly the fastest disc drive made, and I see some difference, but surprisingly little. There is an area one enters in the performance arena in which differences are measured in such small increments that it becomes pointless for a user.

[Larry Reavis]

While it is true that the WD green drives are really slow (mine no longer are connected to my system), the Samsung 5400 rpm green drives are almost as fast as my 7200 rpm drives. Over the past several years I have bought about a half dozen Samsungs (Newegg.com - SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 HD204UI 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive) and all have been great.

I just tested one with ATTO Disk Benchmark, using 8 file sizes ranging from 64kb up to 8192 kb. The lowest speed I got was 87844 MB/sec. for write, and 83819 for read. Fastest was 89776 and 84288. Really quite good. And it was about 80% full! (Full hard disks are significantly slower than nearly empty disks.)

Perhaps the fastest 7200 rpm drive in my system right now is a Seagate that is only about 40% full. It turned in speeds ranging from 97175 at the lowest up to 102261 fastest for write, and read speeds from 103025 up to 105268. Obviously, a 7200 rpm disk that is not even half full is going to outperform a 5400 rpm disk that is mostly full; but not by a lot.

Of the 13 drives currently connected, my Hitachi 2tb 7200 rpm also is quite fast.

If you need a disk, wait a few months. There has been a temporary spike in prices. I got most of those Samsungs for only $80, but now they are $200.

Regarding boot disks, the SSDs that I have used certainly are a treat. Not all that fast for writing data, they have almost zero seek time and find and read (at a good read speed) the myriad tiny files needed to boot in record time. You'll especially notice the difference if you have installed a lot of programs. Highly recommended, but create and keep current a boot image - for they do fail more often than mechanical hard disks. For that reason, be sure to get one that has a great warranty (Intel replaced my X25 quickly when it went bad, no questions asked).

[Harry Simpson]

Originally Posted by Kawika Ohumukini

I've owned about 40 drives and 7200 RPM with a big cache is obviously faster than a 5400 with a tiny cache. 5400 for off-hour stuff mainly backups and 7200 for everything else. GL

This "slower" drive 5400rpm has twice the cache as the 7200rpm drive (64mb vs 32mb cache)
It also is rated as 3.0Gb/s - I've got two older 7200 HDs in my old box I could use but their cache is only 8mb.

How much does the cache figure in verses the RPM?

[Jeff Harper]

The fastest disc drive made (or close to fastest) is the Cheetah 15.7K SAS drive and it has only 16mb of cache. Cache means next to nothing, I believe, but there may be applications where it might make a difference. I don't know, but if you really want to know, google it. People argue over cache, and experts disagree over it as well.

I believe the effectiveness of larger cache has to do with how it's implemented. And though I just said it, I don't know what that means, really.

FWIW, this one is on sale and is one hell of a buy right now. I have three of them in different sizes: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148538

You can disregard the reviewer at the bottom, he sounds pretty dumb. Seagate SAS and SCSI drives are as reliable as any drive made period. These are flagship, top of the line drives, and they do not ship defective. I suppose it could happen, but I find it hard to believe. I started my PC adventure in the mid 90s on Cheetah SCSIs, and those that know, know, you can't do any better.

For those that want really fast, the SSDs sound good, but I still don't trust them, even though I know a lot of guys like them. Western Digital Caviar Blacks are awfully nice drives and really inexpensive, and are plenty fast enough. So are some of the Samsungs. I have some of both and they are, IMO the best buys for fast 1TB and 2TB drives. Seagate regular SATA drives have horrible quality control and I wouldn't put one in my box if you paid me. Just my 2cents, with sincerest apologies to Larry and all other Seagate users.

[Harry Simpson]

Thanks Jeff,

One of the "old" drives I have is a Seagate Cheetah 7000rpm but only 160GB and 8m cache. I definitely want to eliminate any weak ling in Vegas Pro 11 rendering and previewing.....and in other apps in general.

(SAS i'm not familiar with - not sure my board would support it - it has the SATA ports.....)

[Jeff Harper]

You don't need SAS drives anyway. I just like talking about them. (and for what I spent, I guess I feel the need to brag, but truthfully for the OS they are overkill. You'd need a controller, and it's a hassle. Not necessary to go to all that expense.

That Cheetah, is it SCSI?

I'll tell you Harry, most new 7200rpm drive really are fine. I would run my 1TB Caviar Blacks or my old Samsung as my OS anytime, they are great drives.

The 500GB Caviar Blacks are an almost can't miss drive, for OS, IMO, but I've just always loved them. Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD5002AALX 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Price is certainly high now.