Lenovo X61 Hard Drive 5400 vs 7200 rpm

[dp22]

Has anyone else noticed that the performance of the 5400 drive is actually better than the 7200 drive in the X-series??
As best I can tell, here's the numbers, and they are the same regardless of the capacity:

5400RPM:
avg seek time = 11ms
average latency = 5.5ms
Maximum transfer rate = 540 MB/s


7200RPM:
avg seek time = 12ms
average latency = 5.5ms
Maximum transfer rate = 150 MB/s

*Not to mention that the max operating temperature on the 7200 RPM is listed as 35C, which is approx. 95F. You can rule out working outdoors in the southern states during the summer months if this is true.

Unless I'm missing something, it makes no sense to go with the 7200 with these kinds of numbers.

Where did you get these numbers? Can anyone compare these numbers with other studies? The battery life is not as major a concern to me as performance. If those numbers are accurate then I was a fool for going with 7200 RPM.

[yggdrasil]

Where did you get these numbers? Can anyone compare these numbers with other studies? The battery life is not as major a concern to me as performance. If those numbers are accurate then I was a fool for going with 7200 RPM.

I wouldn't worry. These numbers are not even close. Max transfer speeds with 2.5" drives range from 30-60 MB/s.

[Epicardium]

I can't vouch for the accuracy of the numbers, so take them for what they're worth. Admittedly, they seem off. That's why I was wondering if I was missing something.
Here's where I got them, though. I presume these are the drives that are installed in the X61 tablets.

7200RPM:
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/c...D77F5867D31462

5400RPM:
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/c...4A0935CD9ADAF1

Incidentally, I'm almost certain the rates for 5400RPM notebook drives are commonly >= 100MBps. 30-60 sounds more like a 4200RPM drive.

[Epicardium]

This is a noteworthy quote from notebookreview.com

"Robson 1GB Intel Turbo Memory card will give big improvements to hard drive performance, this will be especially beneficial for speeding up the bootup time in Windows Vista. This was a feature the Lenovo product designers were particularly excited about. According to Lenovo the combination of a 5400RPM drive + Intel Turbo Memory = Outperformance of 7200RPM hard drive. Of course, if you want you can get the T61 with a 7200RPM drive and the Intel Turbo Memory for a system that really screams."

[yggdrasil]

Incidentally, I'm almost certain the rates for 5400RPM notebook drives are commonly >= 100MBps. 30-60 sounds more like a 4200RPM drive.

Obviously your instincts about hard drive speeds are way off or you wouldn't be posting these made-up numbers. Please do some basic research before posting.

From the review of the T61 - scroll to the HDTune graphic. You will see that the 7200 RPM 2.5" drive gets a MAXIMUM of 46.1 MB/sec and an average of 37.4 MB/sec. Granted this is not the world's fastest hard drive but the best 2.5" 7200 RPM drive in the world (the Hitachi 7K200) will get maybe 20% more performance.

[Deekity]

The problem is that specs are useless. You're giving meaning to theoretical maximums. Theoretically in overdrive gear my car should go 240mph...in real life - it'll blow the clutch/trans in OD at over 160. Think about this: 2x 150GB WD 10,000 RPM raptors in RAID 0 have a real-world average read transfer of 149MB/s...i'm sorry but the 120GB 5400 RPM drive in my x61 pales in comparison regardless of it's specs. A 7200RPM drive will always be faster than a 5400RPM drive, perpendicular recording/platter density may reduce the advantage, but will not make up completely for it.
I guess the point is - you should buy based on real world performance NOT on specs - else we'd all have the "genuine tornado" sitting in our automobile air intake ready to boost our gas mileage by 25%. Specs are misleading if you don't understand them. By this token I AGREE WITH YOU. In real world performance even though sustained write speed etc is higher with the 7200RPM drive - real world performance suggests that the average user will 'notice' seek time - in which the difference is negligible. ie, even though the 7200rpm drive IS faster - it won't 'seem' much faster. Personally I think the Lenovo spec for the 5400 rpm drive is a typo - I may believe 540Mb/s, not 540MB/s.

[bigtuna]

Can the turbo be added later? I don't think I asked for it, will have to check my receipt... I knew I would forget something...

[cheesyp18]

keep in mind the difference between Mbps (megabits per sec) and MBps (megabytes per sec)

since the specs say MBps, I'm guessing thats a typo on the lenovo website

[123456]

I'm pretty sure that the X61 uses Hitachi Travelstar hard drives, the 7k100 and the 5k160 in SATA. According to Hitachi's specs sheet (link) here are the comparisons between the 2:

7K100:
Up to 629Mb/sec transfer (~79MB/sec)
Latency average (ms) 4.2
Seek time (typical)
Average (ms) 10 R / 11 W
Track to track (ms) 1 R / 1.2 W
Full stroke (ms) 18 R / 19 W
Power (Typical)
Startup (peak, max.) 5.5W
Seek 2.7W
Read (avg.) 2.3W
Write (avg.) 2.3W
Performance idle (avg.) 2.0W
Active idle (avg.) 1.2W
Low power idle (avg.) 0.9W
Standby (avg.) 0.25W
Sleep 0.2W

5K160:
Up to 540 Mb/sec transfer (~68MB/sec)
Latency average (ms) 5.5
Seek time (read, typical)
Average (ms) 11
Power (Typical)
Startup (peak, max.) 5.0W
Read (avg.) 1.8W
Write (avg.) 1.8W
Active idle (avg.) 0.85W
Low power idle (avg.) 0.65W
Standby (avg.) 0.25W
Sleep 0.2W

So as you can see, the 7200 rpm has a much faster transfer rate (+16%) and lower latency. The seek times are a little slower, probably due to the 5400 rpm being denser. Since it's denser, it will have a better full stroke seek time (time it takes to seek the entire width of the disk). However, if you defragment your drive properly, all your files will be at the beginning of the drive, thus the real world seek times will be about the same or even favor the 7200 rpm slightly. The performance of the 7200 rpm drive is definitely superior to that of the 5400rpm drive.

Now to see how much more power the 7200 rpm drive uses. The X61 probably uses around 10W. You're not going to be constantly seeking the hard drive. Most of the time, the hard drive is either idle or reading/writing. At around 2W power usage, that's 20% of the entire power consumption. The 7K100 uses 27% more power reading/writing than the 5K160. 27% of 20% is about 5%. So, if you constantly read/write, then you'll save 5% of battery. If the battery lasts 7 hours, that's a savings of 21 minutes. However, you're not going to be constantly reading/writing. Most of the time, you'll probably using the web or taking notes on the tablet. In active idle (drive constantly spins), the 5400 rpm uses about 30% less power. However, the power used is only around 1W or 10% of the total consumption. 30% of 10% is 3%. At 7 hours, that's 12 minutes. If you have power management where the spins down when not in use, the power consumption is even less and the battery life you save will be even less.

So, while the difference in battery usage really isn't that great, the performance difference is quite large. For me, the performance increase of the 7200 rpm drive over the 5400 rpm drive more than compensates for the extra power usage.

[Stansfield]

Ok, so we're clear about the performance and battery life, BUT, as I'm a student and I need to take notes during class, another important issue for me is the noise level. As I've heard the 7200rpm is noticably louder. Is that true? Can anyone quote any specs on that, and any real-life observations?