Are the new Barracuda 5900 rpm HDD's a backward step?

[Zak33]

Lo people

I've just spotted that Seagate make "eco friendly" drives that rev a tad above the tradiotional laptop speed on 5400rpm, running at 5900rpm, but they're desk top hard drives.

Having looked at some power draw figures around the net, I'd not say that hard drives are necessarily the biggest power issue in a PC... and the performance must take a massive hit at those reduced speeds... so is this a step backwards for them?

I also can't help but wonder, in my devious mind.. have they reduced the speeds to keep the lifecycles of them up as they're having marginally more failures than they'd like and more warranty returns? Maybe they made a batch of drives that just didn't do the reliability thing in testing and 5900rpm is the fastest they're safe at?

QWhat do you guys think? I mean,...who would buy one? I wouldn't.. I'm after FASTER with modern technology....not slower.

[kalniel]

Lowering the RPM does make things easier for higher capacities. But a better approach for the eco side is a variable RPM drive like the Samsung F2s.

[malfunction]

I've bought 5,400 RPM drives where noise is a concern (in my HTPC) and I do generally prefer a quieter PC so I'm tempted to do the same in my desktop (currently running 2 x 500GB 7,200 RPM drives). Of course what I'd really like to do is buy a large cheap SSD which would be both faster and quieter but they aren't that affordable as yet (I have a 30GB SLC Samsung SSD as my main boot drive in my desktop PC and it's great - can't wait until I can afford to replace all of my drives with them).

[666moe666]

It probably is a step backwards imo cause even my laptop (when it arrives) will run at 7,200rp for hdd speed. I'm not that bothered if it gets slightly hotter if it takes less time booting up.

Also while i'm in this thread. Is there any way to test the speed of your hard drives without having to open up your pc and look at the label on them?

[malfunction]

Is there any way to test the speed of your hard drives without having to open up your pc and look at the label on them?

Yes - look up the model number in the drive properties

[shaithis]

Slower speed but higher density......the 2 may balance out in the great scheme of things.

[arthurleung]

Certainly not the case when you RAID these 5400RPM babies.
Say if you have 4 of these in RAID5, providing the RAID card is not the limiting factor, the seek time for the first 500GB of a 4.5TB array will certainly be faster not just transfer rate, but also seek time, due to "short-stroking", than say a pair of regular 7200RPM drives using the same amount of power.

And in my experience when a drive is reading past 250MB/s it is mostly CPU-bound. Or otherwise its just copy&paste and doesn't require much random access. Huge drives rarely get fragmented anyway.
One exception is probably ultra-huge databases but then you would be using Savvio drives, or large number of 2.5" drives, certainly not using 3.5" drives.

[abaxas]

AGAHGAHGA

It's neither a step in backwards or forwards, it's a different product for a different use!

People should remember that a product can only be reviewed inside it's design specification not what people want to use it for.

[Zak33]

AGAHGAHGA

It's neither a step in backwards or forwards, it's a different product for a different use!

People should remember that a product can only be reviewed inside it's design specification not what people want to use it for.

I disagree.. other brands don't feel the need to MAKE their drives slower.. so why does Seagate?
What market are they trying to gain?

If I was to build a box for my living room, say, and needed space and not speed, Id still not buy one of those. I'd buy a WD or a Hitachi. Same price. Same size. Faster.

I don't get why they're slower when everything else is going faster.

[mike_w]

I disagree.. other brands don't feel the need to MAKE their drives slower.. so why does Seagate?

Western Digital also have a similar product -- they call theirs "Green". Similar idea, so far as I can tell -- lower power consumption and quieter at the cost of performance. Apparently, the bog standard drives (now known as "Blue") are still pretty quiet, and have decent performance, so I'll probably stick to those.

[mikerr]

5400rpm drives:

WD have GreenPower drives
Samsung have ecoGreen

Seagate are actually late to this one....

[mikerr]

Lowering the RPM does make things easier for higher capacities. But a better approach for the eco side is a variable RPM drive like the Samsung F2s.

Nope, that's a constant 5400rpm. There are no current variable RPM drives.

[jim]

Nope, that's a constant 5400rpm. There are no current variable RPM drives.

Was going to post the same, IIRC the term "variable RPM" came from Western Digital (Green drives) who gave each drive they sold its own RPM when it left the factory, dependent on the drive itself. It didn't actually change on the fly.

[kalniel]

Nope, that's a constant 5400rpm. There are no current variable RPM drives.

Apologies, it was the WD greenpower drives that supposedly vary RPM, but as you say.. they probably don't!

[Zak33]

right...so Greens run at 5400?

Makes sense now... that's why the one I had was so slow loading games.... ok.. well, clearly not for me, but glad it makes someone happy

[jim]

right...so Greens run at 5400?

Makes sense now... that's why the one I had was so slow loading games.... ok.. well, clearly not for me, but glad it makes someone happy

Well somewhere between 5400 and 7200, but effectively yeah. They're really not that good in that sense. For data storage though, low power, temperature and noise are all much appreciated. Luckily, since data density has increased over the years, the performance of these "slow" drives has improved, but it still isn't all that great. You're effectively negating all the improvements made in hard drive technology with the slower spindle speeds.

This article on Toms Hardware is well worth a look, covers exactly this topic: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/hard-d...iew-31658.html