Is a 7200 rpm IDE drive really faster than
a 5400 rpm drive?

First posted 9/27/99
© 1999 Rob Art Morgan, editor of BARE FEATS
rob-art@barefeats.com

Two of the most popular bargain IDE drives selling right now are the Maxtor Diamond Plus 20 gig ($199 at CompUSA) and the Quantum CX 20 gig ($219 at Outpost). But the Maxtor runs at 7200 rpm and the Quantum runs only at 5400 rpm. Does that mean it's slower?
 

 

Conclusion:
There's seems to be no significant difference in the speed of these two drives, especially in the "real world" DUPLICATE tests. And one avid disk drive technology observer suggested that the 5400 rpm drive would be more reliable. All things being equal, I'll vote for data integrity.

I admit a more fair test would be to test two drives from the same manufacturer with identical specs other than spindle speed. If that opportunity presents itself, I'll retest. It may be difficult, however to find such a scenario. And drive manufacturers haven't been too cooperative with eval units lately.

Test Configurations & Procedures

 

A big MAHALO to...

...Outpost for the use of the Quantum drive

...CompUSA for the use of the Maxtor drive

 

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for best prices on these and other products.

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© 1999 Rob Art Morgan, editor of BARE FEATS
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