I am wanting put a secondary internal hard drive in my laptop. My primary drive is a 7200RPM / 64GB SSD hybrid which performs really well. I want to install another hard drive purely for data, mainly GIS (Geographic Information Systems) spatial data and file spatial geodatabases as well as for photography data such as Adobe Lightroom files (some form of a non-destructive database), image RAW files and photoshop files. Basically, the files I will be accessing are large but aside from the RAW image files and large TIFF files they are likely very fragmented.
Solid state drive for purely data is not an option right now ($) because I need 1TB but I am curious what is more suitable for a secondary "data" drive; 5400 RPM or 7200RPM?
62 Answers
A 7200 RPM is going to read faster than the 5400 because of the spindle speed, however a lot of benching has been shown to show that the benefits are minimal. While a 7200 RPM drive will give you slightly better performance, focus more on cache size. A 64MB cache will give you considerably better performance than a 32 or 16MB cache.
The actual benefit in regard to speed between the two drives is negligible. If I were you, I would suggest taking a look at an SSD if you need to replace a laptop hard drive. You will get a huge performance boost from any SSD when you compare it to a spinning hard drive.
This is only my suggestion, but stay far away from Western Digital if at all possible. I've done hundreds of RMAs over the past 10 years and 85% have been for WD hard drives. I do not work nor have I worked for any hard drive manufacturer, nor am I a consultant or spokesperson for any computer hardware manufacturer. This statement is based only on personal experience. Your mileage may vary.
2In terms of speed you will not see significant difference. However you may see a significant advantage going with the 5400 drive because of temperature. You have not specified but I will assume you have one of those laptops that has multiple HD bays. In that case the heat produced might be the most important factor. And comparing 5400 to 7200 RPM drives there is a significant difference in heat so I would stick with 5400
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