Hard Drives: 5400 RPM vs 7200 RPM

It's pretty tough, but not impossible to find 2.5" 7200rpm drives, since the manufacturers moved their production capacity to serial ATA drives. With the perpendicular data storage that drives are using today, which creates denser data storage densities, data is under the heads quicker than older 5400rpm drives. I wouldn't lose sleep over 7200rpm drives ... while perhaps a valid question 2 years ago, it's less so today.

I can offer you this two comparisons. The first is the XBench of my Early '09 Mac mini with a 5400 rpm int HDD. The second results are from my Early '06 iMac Core Duo with a 7200 rpm HDD. The iMac has better results. The mini's harddrive bus speed is 3 Gbps compared to the iMac's 1.5 Gbps, so the results could be more dramatically different when the comparison is with two identical Mac configurations.

Mac mini
Disk Test 49.80
Sequential 64.46
Uncached Write 75.37 46.28 MB/sec 4K blocks
Uncached Write 87.63 49.58 MB/sec 256K blocks
Uncached Read 36.07 10.55 MB/sec 4K blocks
Uncached Read 103.71 52.12 MB/sec 256K blocks
Random 40.57
Uncached Write 15.71 1.66 MB/sec 4K blocks
Uncached Write 92.39 29.58 MB/sec 256K blocks
Uncached Read 69.11 0.49 MB/sec 4K blocks
Uncached Read 103.87 19.27 MB/sec 256K blocks

iMac
Disk Test 65.96
Sequential 89.96
Uncached Write 98.61 60.55 MB/sec 4K blocks
Uncached Write 98.33 55.63 MB/sec 256K blocks
Uncached Read 64.70 18.93 MB/sec 4K blocks
Uncached Read 114.94 57.77 MB/sec 256K blocks
Random 52.07
Uncached Write 19.99 2.12 MB/sec 4K blocks
Uncached Write 122.45 39.20 MB/sec 256K blocks
Uncached Read 89.66 0.64 MB/sec 4K blocks
Uncached Read 133.57 24.79 MB/sec 256K blocks

Dah•veed

CoolG4,

I goofed .... I replied thinking I was still working a Powerbook question .... long day for me! If I were buying a new mini, I'd spend the extra and get a 7200rpm drive. While a 5400rpm drive is quick, the slightly faster 7200rpm drive will give you slightly snappier response times on disk operations.

If I were buying a new mini, I'd spend the extra and get a 7200rpm drive.

That is not an option available from Apple. Perhaps a 3rd party reseller has such a deal.

Dah•veed

I'm a little confused, David. You say the iMac has better results. Yet the read/write times for the Mini are shorter. Isn't that faster (and better)?

Perhaps you are reading it wrong. I think 60.55 MB/sec is faster than 46.28 MB/sec. Do you?

Dah•veed

OH..OK...yes, I see that now. I misread the info. Thanks for clearing that up.