quick external hard drive Q

[jp22382]

forgive me for asking, probably a simple answer... but am i going to notice any speed difference between a 5400 or 7200 rpm drive in a usb 2.0 case? my thought is the transfer rate of the case would override the transfer rate of the drive.... am i way off here?

[Bovon]

You could probably find some difference with benchmarking software..but I have never been able to detect any lag time difference from a wait time view point. Many 5400 rpm drives have good data transfer. I have one 5400 that has 10 ms data rate, and I have a 7200 rpm drive with a 9 ms rate..kind hard to "see" the difference.

Now..if you were talking about the difference between a 15000 rpm SCSI and a 5400 rpm IDE...then, yep...that would be noticeable!

[jp22382]

well yeah i know the differences between the drives themselves..... what i was asking is am i going to notice any change in an external case? i would think the transfer rate on a usb 2 case would override any speed difference on the drive itself.
sorry if i didnt make myself clear.

[John Prophet]

usb 2 is pretty quick...I guess it depends on the sort of things youd be doing with the drive.

usb 2 is a little slower than firewire in actual tests...I think usb 2 uses more cpu cycles

[Bovon]

Originally posted by jp22382
what i was asking is am i going to notice any change in an external case?

I think I am getting the picture now..and if I am, let me say I have a USB external case I ordered from Newegg a few months ago. At the same time, I ordered a Maxtor 7200 rpm drive... but I also have other (older) drives that I keep stuff on. I just slip which ever drive I want into the housing when I want something...some of the drives are 5400 rpm, and once I slip the drive in the case and put the back on it.. I can't tell any difference than what it looks like with the new 7200 rpm drive inside. Is this kinda what you wanted to know?..

[jp22382]

yeah kinda, see i already have the external case... and what im trying to figure out is should i buy a 7200 or 5400 rpm to go in it, because if im not going to notice any speed difference, i may as well save a little $ and get a 5400 rpm drive

[Bovon]

Originally posted by jp22382
yeah kinda, see i already have the external case... and what im trying to figure out is should i buy a 7200 or 5400 rpm to go in it, because if im not going to notice any speed difference, i may as well save a little $ and get a 5400 rpm drive

My opinion would be this. I also like to save a buck here and there when possible. This setup will be for storage, right?.. you will not have it setup to run installed applications probably (I don't..just run the USB drive to get stuff when wanted).

In this kind of setup.. I would definitely go with the 5400 rpm drive because I know I am not going to be in a big hurry waiting on something to load etc. I bought a 7200 rpm drive because I anticipate using that drive as a ghosted backup for my primary drive soon, and I will either reorder a drive for the USB setup, (or use one of the several smaller ones I already have)...which would be a 5400 rpm drive for 2 reasons. 5400 rpms will be plenty for the USB setup, and this 7200 rpm drive runs much warmer than a 5400 rpm drive...after the drive has been powered up for 30 minutes, the enclosure is very warm..if I remove that drive to run a different one..the 7200 rpm drive is almost to hot to handle...not good!! (My enclosure does not have a fan..but I will install one soon as I can find a small, good one).