# is 7,200 rpm any good?



## ste2425 (Aug 24, 2009)

theres a 80 gig Western Digital hdd going for 15 quid but is 7,200 rpm any fast?


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## erocker (Aug 24, 2009)

Most HDD's are 7200rpm. Is the drive sata or ide? If it's ide, rpm's aren't going to really matter anyways.


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## ste2425 (Aug 24, 2009)

sata mate


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## BroBQ (Aug 24, 2009)

7200rpm is pretty much standard. Something to look for is the amount of cache on the drive. is it 8mb, 16mb?


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## erocker (Aug 24, 2009)

Then you have 7200.1, 7200.7, .11, etc. Since it's 80gb and most likely an older drive it most likely will get about half the performance of a modern 7200.11 or 7200.12 hdd. I'm guessing around 50Mbps read for the 80gb drive.


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## BroBQ (Aug 24, 2009)

I would agree... almost not worth buying the drive.


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## ste2425 (Aug 24, 2009)

right ok cheers, i will keep looking im just on a very very tight budget.


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## newtekie1 (Aug 24, 2009)

erocker said:


> Most HDD's are 7200rpm. Is the drive sata or ide? If it's ide, rpm's aren't going to really matter anyways.



How so?


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## erocker (Aug 24, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> How so?



I'm referring to the HDD the OP is talking about, not overall. Besides it doesn't matter, it's a SATA drive.


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## BroBQ (Aug 24, 2009)

ste2425 said:


> right ok cheers, i will keep looking im just on a very very tight budget.



If you are on a small budget, why not wait until you get a little more and get yourself a large drive.


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## aCid888* (Aug 24, 2009)

Can get a brand new 160GB 7200rpm Maxtor drive for 29 quid on eBuyer.


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## newtekie1 (Aug 24, 2009)

erocker said:


> Then you have 7200.1, 7200.7, .11, etc. Since it's 80gb and most likely an older drive it most likely will get about half the performance of a modern 7200.11 or 7200.12 hdd. I'm guessing around 50Mbps read for the 80gb drive.



There are 7200.10 80GB drives with read speeds were pretty decent on them IIRC.



erocker said:


> I'm referring to the HDD the OP is talking about, not overall. Besides it doesn't matter, it's a SATA drive.



But that still doesn't make sense.  Rotational speed definitely matters, even on IDE and SATA.  A 5400RPM drive is going to be slow on IDE or SATA, and if it was 7200RPM it would likely be about the same performance wise on IDE or SATA.  The 80GB worries more than anything else, smaller drives tend to be slower, that is just the way it is.


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## erocker (Aug 24, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> There are 7200.10 80GB drives with read speeds were pretty decent on them IIRC.
> 
> 
> 
> But that still doesn't make sense.  Rotational speed definitely matters, even on IDE and SATA.  A 5400RPM drive is going to be slow on IDE or SATA, and if it was 7200RPM it would likely be about the same performance wise on IDE or SATA.  The 80GB worries more than anything else, smaller drives tend to be slower, that is just the way it is.



Yes, I know. The reason I asked was more due to the age of the HDD, not really it's interface. Thanks for the clarification.


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## newtekie1 (Aug 24, 2009)

erocker said:


> Yes, I know. The reason I asked was more due to the age of the HDD, not really it's interface. Thanks for the clarification.



Ah, makes sense now.


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## thebeephaha (Aug 24, 2009)

7200RPM is weak. 15000RPM all the way.

Kidding.

Seriously RPM speed is pretty silly to judge a drive by.

Many newer 7200RPM drives wipe the floor with older 10k and 15k drives a few years old in everything but random access times.


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## ste2425 (Aug 24, 2009)

well im heading of to uni very soon so wont have the cash at all but need the extra space. Speed isnt a real main factor for me its price and size. I mean would a faster hdd realy improve my gaming performance with the rest of my rig? i was only asking as i dont want performance to get any worse then what im already at


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## BroBQ (Aug 25, 2009)

What you need to ask yourself is this... do you want performance or space? which one is more important? regardless of what you want, any modern hdd will give you the performance and space you need. 500GB SATA II 16mb cache hdd for $50.00 is a pretty sweet deal.

Don't waste your money on an old outdated IDE drive


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## ste2425 (Aug 25, 2009)

well i need space but as you can see my rig is dated in areas and i need all the performance i can get. So whilst i want space over performance i dont want to loose so much performance that it will be slower then my current hdd. The main thing i want performance for is gaming. So would a faster hdd have any effect on fps?

and wheres that hdd you mentioned at?


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## AltecV1 (Aug 25, 2009)

are you jokeing me 7200rpm is SOO today you should get one of those 25000rpm driver! Booya


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## nafets (Aug 25, 2009)

An HDD shouldn't have any effect on your FPS. The only thing that would change is how long it takes to load up the game/maps/levels.

As far as performance goes, the main things to figure out with an older HDD is the RPM and platter density.

Obviously 7200RPM is usually better than 5400RPM (mainly in access times).

Higher density platters increase overall throughput in both reads and writes.


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