5400 rpm vs 7200 rpm hard drive: how to choose the right one

Are you looking for a mechanical hard drive ? You will have seen that there are two speeds: 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM. Do not know which one to choose? Come inside.

Mechanical hard drives are a perfect solution to store a huge amount of data. We have all been to them once, but I don't usually see people who know how to differentiate between 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM. Normally, you usually choose the hard drive for price-capacity, but we want to teach you how to choose the right one to enjoy certain benefits.

Index of contents

5400 RPM vs 7200 RPM hard drive

Before starting to tell you the strengths and weaknesses of each, it would be good to lay down certain basic notions. We are talking about mechanical hard drives, not SSD, so we will be facing read and write speeds that do not exceed 200 MB / s or 155 MB / s.

This type of drive is characterized by offering a lot of capacity at a low price, compared to SSDs or M.2 SSDs. However, there must be certain clear factors: consumption, transfer speeds, temperature, noise and price. Depending on which RPM we choose, we will have advantages or disadvantages.

Consumption

Laptops often equip 5400 RPM hard drives because they consume 6 watts. On the other hand, 7200 RPM hard drives consume 10 watts, which does not matter on a desktop because we do not have to save battery life or cut performance in favor of it.

This does not mean that laptops do not have a 7200 RPM hard drive. Due to advances in technology, we hardly see mechanical hard drives in these computers anymore, so it is a matter that you may not care much about.

However, we know that many of you have older computers and it is a factor to take into account: the consumption of the hard drive.

Transfer rates

Here we find the first weakness of the 5400 RPM vs 7200 RPM hard drive: the write and read speed. The first is slower than the second in everything, something that we are not interested in a desktop because the consumption of 10 watts is indifferent.

To give you an idea, the speeds they have are the following:

• 5, 400 RPM.
  • • Read speed: 102.1 MB / s. Write speed: 95.84 MB / s.
  7, 200 RPM.
  • • Read speed: 195.8 MB / s. Write speed: 153.4 MB / s.

The difference in performance is much higher, so here we recommend one or the other depending on what you want to do:

• Simply store data that you are not going to be running continuously: 5, 400 RPM. Store data that you will be running normally (such as large video games): 7, 200 RPM.

As a personal experience, I install large video games on my mechanical hard drive and the difference is abysmal. Today, a current video game can occupy 60 GB perfectly, not to mention titles like GTA V. If you are inveterate "gamers"… possibly you have more than 400 GB in video games.

In this sense, I recommend SSD before a mechanic because new video games take a long time to load the scenarios and to run. That said, if we go to the market we will see 1 TB SSD at more than € 100, so it is logical that people end up going to a 2 TB mechanic for € 60, for example.

So if you are going to play a lot of games and you need capacity, I would recommend one of 7, 200 RPM.

Temperatures

This data for some will be useless and for others valuable: everything will depend on the destination of the hard disk. 5, 400 RPM hard drives are 6 degrees cooler than 7, 200 RPM. To give you an idea, my hard drive is 7, 200 RPM and has a temperature of 39 degrees at full load, while a 5, 400 RPM would have about 30 to 33 degrees.

If you are going to use the hard drive in the laptop, you are interested in the 5, 400 RPM to not have a toaster, basically. Keep in mind that most laptops have a very fair dissipation, so: the higher the temperature, the worse.

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Noise

Many will not care, but it is true that the 5, 400 RPM units are quieter than the 7, 200 RPM ones. On a desktop it will not matter to us, but on a laptop it can be somewhat annoying. I suppose it will be to everyone's liking, my personal opinion is that mine does not make an exorbitant noise, nor acceptable; in fact, if my PC is heard it is because of the chassis, heatsink and GPU fans.

Price

With the above, 7, 200 RPM hard drives are cheaper than 5, 400 RPM. Why? I consider that because most come in 3.5 inch format, which is not suitable for notebooks. On the other hand, most of the 5, 400 RPM come in 2.5-inch format, although we can find 3.5-inch units.

All things being equal, the higher speed ones are cheaper than the lower speed ones. Of course, in the vast majority of cases, we will be buying hard drives for desktop, not for laptops.

conclusion

My conclusion is that everyone should choose the hard drive depending on their needs. If we have a laptop, the most ideal is a 5, 400 RPM because it consumes less, makes less noise and has less temperatures. If we will use a desktop, it is best to go to one of 7, 200 RPM for its transfer speeds and better price.

With all this, and unless you need a lot of capacity (more than 1 TB), I recommend, in full 2020, SSD because the difference in experience is amazing. Also, the m.2 are much faster than these, so that remains.

We hope that it has helped you and that the difference between the two speeds has become clear. If you have any questions, please comment below and we will be delighted to reply.

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What type of hard drive do you have? Which of the two would you recommend? What experiences do you have with its use? Would you choose a 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM hard drive?