What are the main differnces in these 2 hard drives? (almost idential)

R

rapzit

New Member
Choosing between two 1.5 TB storage hardrives, but cant see the difference between these:


Seagate 1.5TB Barracuda 7200RPM SATA-300 32MB (£84.99)

http://www.dabs.com/products/seagat...m-sata-300-32mb-56WJ.html?refs=50410-52070000
Specs:
Capacity: 1.5 TB
Interface Type: Serial ATA-300
Data Transfer Rate: 300 MBps
Buffer Size : 32 MB
Spindle Speed: 5900 rpm




Seagate 1.5Tb BARRACUDA LP 3.5" (£79.97)
http://www.dabs.com/products/seagate-1-5tb-barracuda-lp-3-5--5K3M.html?refs=50410-52070000

Specs:
Capacity: 1.5 TB
Interface Type: Serial ATA-300
Data Transfer Rate: 300 MBps
Buffer Size : 32 MB
Spindle Speed: 7200 rpm



Thats where im confused, the 2nd one has a FASTER spindal speed (7200, compared to the 5900 on the cheaper one)
yet the faster one is more cheaper? shouldnt it be more expensive if it is a bit faster? - explain this somebody....

what are the other main differences between the 2? any recommendations ? (i am happy to pay the extra if i have to)
and wil be using it for general home use, creating some basic video files, dvds, playing with music, creating occasional webpages etc

but am just wondering that, besides the reviews, which of the 2 has any advantages over the other ?
 
The slower one is a little more "Green" because spinning at a slower speed saves energy, and the performance is slightly lowered because of that.

That's the only main difference.
 
The cheaper one running at 7200rpm is going to be faster. As voyager mentioned, the 5900rpm one is marketed as "eco-friendly" as it uses less power, so they think they can get more money for it, even though it isn't as fast.
 
The more expensive one is going to be about 25% faster, the cheaper one will consume less power (not normally a concern), and be a bit quieter.
 
Ha--PohTayToez, you're right.

(The original post is mixed up--in bold it states the wrong speed, and in red it states the right speed--naturally my eye went to the bold, but wrong, data!)
 
PohTayToez said:
The 5900RPM drive is £79.86, while the 7200RPM is £84.99. The more expensive one is the 7200RPM. I don't know how everyone got that switched around.
Click to expand...

Jet said:
Ha--PohTayToez, you're right.

(The original post is mixed up--in bold it states the wrong speed, and in red it states the right speed--naturally my eye went to the bold, but wrong, data!)
Click to expand...

Hah. I was reading through this thread and was confused when everyone was saying the cheaper one had better performance. I don't really have anything else to add, everything has been covered already - the 7200RPM drive is faster but the 5900 one uses less power and is quieter. I wouldn't bother with the LP drive, I don't think those slow hard drives are all that useful outside of laptops where battery life is a concern and even that isn't too bad now.
 
PohTayToez said:
The more expensive one is going to be about 25% faster, the cheaper one will consume less power (not normally a concern), and be a bit quieter.
Click to expand...

I am curious as to how you gauge the performance at 25% faster. I agree that the faster platter spin on the drive will have faster read/write times, but I am not sure how to quantify it as 25%.
 
tlarkin said:
I am curious as to how you gauge the performance at 25% faster. I agree that the faster platter spin on the drive will have faster read/write times, but I am not sure how to quantify it as 25%.
Click to expand...

Maybe he got it from 7200/5900 = 1.22 = 22% faster?
 
If you look at the latency times, the 7200RPM drive has about 20% less latency associated with it (5.5ms compared to 4.16ms), so potentially 25% better performance. But I agree, it's a pretty hard thing to put a hard number to.
 
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