• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

HD Question

Joined
Mar 31, 2007
Messages
1,895 (0.31/day)
Location
ontario canada
System Name home brew
Processor Intel Corei7 3770K OC @ 4.5Ghz
Motherboard ASUS P8Z77-V
Cooling Corsair H100
Memory 16GB DDR3 1600 GSKILL
Video Card(s) Powercolor Radeon 7970, MSI Radeon 7970
Storage Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 240gb. 2 TB Hdd.
Display(s) 3x24inch Dell Ultra IPS
Case CM storm trooper
Power Supply Antec Quattro OC ed. 1200w
Software Windows 7 Business x64
Benchmark Scores vantage: P43089
It could be 7200, but it could be 5400. I'd say get another one that is 7200 cause yes the speed difference is noticeable.
 
Joined
Feb 24, 2009
Messages
309 (0.06/day)
Location
Orange County, CA
System Name CanOWorms
Processor Ryzen 5 1600
Motherboard ASRock AB350M
Memory 16GB @ 2933
Video Card(s) EVGA Geforce 1050 Ti
Storage 256GB MX100 & 1TB WD Blue
Display(s) Samsung 40" 4K TV
Case Cougar MX330
Power Supply Seasonic M12II Evo
Mouse Gamdias Demeter
Keyboard Logitech G710+
Software Win10
I thought only laptops still had 5400RPM options available. It's silly if companies are still making 5400RPM desktop drives.
 
Joined
Aug 9, 2006
Messages
1,065 (0.17/day)
System Name [Primary Workstation]
Processor Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield @ 3.8GHz/4.55GHz [24-7/Bench]
Motherboard EVGA X58 E758-A1 [Tweaked right!]
Cooling Cooler Master V8 [stock fan + two 133CFM ULTRA KAZE fans]
Memory 12GB [Kingston HyperX]
Video Card(s) constantly upgrading/downgrading [prefer nVidia]
Storage constantly upgrading/downgrading [prefer Hitachi/Samsung]
Display(s) Triple LCD [40 inch primary + 32 & 28 inch auxiliary displays]
Case Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 [Mesh Mod, CFM Overload]
Audio Device(s) ASUS Xonar D1 + onboard Realtek ALC889A [Logitech Z-5300 Spk., Niko 650-HP 5.1 Hp., X-Bass Hp.]
Power Supply Corsair TX950W [aka Reactor]
Software This and that... [All software 100% legit and paid for, 0% pirated]
Benchmark Scores Ridiculously good scores!!!
I believe you are referring to one of those variable spindle speed hard drive series like the entire Green Power line-up from Western Digital or a similar series from Hitachi. Difference I believe is that Western Digital's Green Power are actually in-variable spindle speed drives. That is, Western Digital puts either 5400RPM or 7200RPM motors into different Green Power drives, or revisions of those drives. So if you are buying a Green Power drive it really is like a lottery. You might get a 7200RPM version or you might not. Hitachi on the other hand puts actual motors into their drives that are capable of variable spindle speeds. Now, all this was true as of few months ago and Western Digital might have started putting actual motors capable of variable spindle speeds into their drives. Unknown factor really.

Now would you notice the difference? Yes, especially if you do lot of disk intensive tasks. If all you do is browse the internet and play some random games then it really doesn't matter.
 
Joined
Mar 27, 2008
Messages
697 (0.12/day)
Location
Zagreb, Croatia
Processor C2D E8400@3.9GHz (488x8, 1.4v :( )
Motherboard Abit IP35-E
Cooling Thermaltake Sonic Tower+120mm fan
Memory 2GB kingmax ddr1066@976MHz 5-5-5-15
Video Card(s) Radeon X1800GTO @700/1400MHz with Accelero S1+Glacialtech fancard
Storage 2xSeagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB
Display(s) Samsung SyncMaster 793s... just you laugh...
Case some Aplus case
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC888
Power Supply Chieftec 450W
Software Win7 x64
more RPM = lower latency - latency is very important factor in disk performance (lower = better)
 

nafets

New Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2008
Messages
611 (0.11/day)
WD's Green Power drives run at 5400RPM, period.

No lottery, no variable speeds, etc.

You'll never see WD state that in their HDD propaganda, because they don't want to scare off semi-knowledgeable buyers, with buying "old technology" 5400RPM drives. While it may spin slower, the WD Green Power's disk density is quite good, so sustained read/write performance isn't lacking (as much) when compared to current 7200RPM drives. Latency will always be a bit slower though...

The only reason to get the WD Green Power drives is for a cheaper large capacity (>1TB) storage drive or for something that uses less power/runs cooler.

If you're purely looking at performance, stick to a defined, current, high density (>320GB per) platter 7200RPM drive...
 

bruinator

New Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2009
Messages
20 (0.00/day)
Yes, I ended up going with Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200RPM drive.

thx all
 
Joined
Aug 9, 2006
Messages
1,065 (0.17/day)
System Name [Primary Workstation]
Processor Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield @ 3.8GHz/4.55GHz [24-7/Bench]
Motherboard EVGA X58 E758-A1 [Tweaked right!]
Cooling Cooler Master V8 [stock fan + two 133CFM ULTRA KAZE fans]
Memory 12GB [Kingston HyperX]
Video Card(s) constantly upgrading/downgrading [prefer nVidia]
Storage constantly upgrading/downgrading [prefer Hitachi/Samsung]
Display(s) Triple LCD [40 inch primary + 32 & 28 inch auxiliary displays]
Case Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 [Mesh Mod, CFM Overload]
Audio Device(s) ASUS Xonar D1 + onboard Realtek ALC889A [Logitech Z-5300 Spk., Niko 650-HP 5.1 Hp., X-Bass Hp.]
Power Supply Corsair TX950W [aka Reactor]
Software This and that... [All software 100% legit and paid for, 0% pirated]
Benchmark Scores Ridiculously good scores!!!
WD's Green Power drives run at 5400RPM, period.

No lottery, no variable speeds, etc.

In fact, there were 7200RPM Green Power drives. I would know, I owned one them. Although, I'm unsure what the situation is currently since they might have changed how they do things. Here is something from WD directly on their IntelliPower aspect of Green Power drives with relevant parts bolded:

"IntelliPower - A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate, and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance. For each GreenPower drive model, WD may use a different, invariable RPM."

Many reviewers pointed this out as well. Here is one from HotHardware regarding a 1TB GP drive.
http://hothardware.com/Articles/Western_Digital_Caviar_and_RE2_GreenPower_1TB_Hard_Drives/

As for Hitachi? With all their financial problems nowadays I can see them going the in-variable spindle speed route since it probably is the cheaper route to take.
 
Joined
Dec 5, 2006
Messages
7,704 (1.22/day)
System Name Back to Blue
Processor i9 14900k
Motherboard Asrock Z790 Nova
Cooling Corsair H150i Elite
Memory 64GB Corsair Dominator DDR5-6400 @ 6600
Video Card(s) EVGA RTX 3090 Ultra FTW3
Storage 4TB WD 850x NVME, 4TB WD Black, 10TB Seagate Barracuda Pro
Display(s) 1x Samsung Odyssey G7 Neo and 1x Dell u2518d
Case Lian Li o11 DXL w/custom vented front panel
Audio Device(s) Focusrite Saffire PRO 14 -> DBX DriveRack PA+ -> Mackie MR8 and MR10 / Senn PX38X -> SB AE-5 Plus
Power Supply Corsair RM1000i
Mouse Logitech G502x
Keyboard Corsair K95 Platinum
Software Windows 11 x64 Pro
Benchmark Scores 31k multicore Cinebench - CPU limited 125w
The WD Green's are not very good drives... I have had a few fail quickly and the ones that do work are really dog slow.
 

nafets

New Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2008
Messages
611 (0.11/day)
In fact, there were 7200RPM Green Power drives. I would know, I owned one them. Although, I'm unsure what the situation is currently since they might have changed how they do things. Here is something from WD directly on their IntelliPower aspect of Green Power drives with relevant parts bolded:

"IntelliPower - A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate, and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance. For each GreenPower drive model, WD may use a different, invariable RPM."

Many reviewers pointed this out as well. Here is one from HotHardware regarding a 1TB GP drive.
http://hothardware.com/Articles/Western_Digital_Caviar_and_RE2_GreenPower_1TB_Hard_Drives/

As for Hitachi? With all their financial problems nowadays I can see them going the in-variable spindle speed route since it probably is the cheaper route to take.

As I said before, the supposed "Intellipower" feature is useless WD garbage marketspeak.

How do you think the GP drives use less power than most other drives? Because it's always spinning slower. Less speed (in this case) means less power used.

As far as knowing whether or not you got a 7200RPM version; It doesn't state the speed anywhere on the drive, nor is it easy to differentiate it based purely on sustained read/write performance or latency results.

The only true way to find out is by doing a frequency analysis of the sound output of the the drive. You can read about that at SPCR, if you haven't already. I highly doubt you had some golden sample 7200RPM GreenPower drive (although weirder things have happened).

The mention of a in-variable speed in Hitachi's power saving P7K500 series HDDs, was a misnomer. These drives run at a fixed 7200RPM speed, but save power by using slowed actuator movements, resulting in quieter seeks and lower power usage. The only problem with it is the very high latency (~18-19ms) and sub-standard IO performance.

/WD GreenPower rant mode off
 
Top