hdd speed compatibilty 7200(a) 5400 slave

the.cipher · October 29th, 2002, 07:54 PM

I have been having a argument recently about wheather if a 7200 rpm 20gig hdd was the primary and I had a secondary drive that was for backing up only that ran at 5400rpm. would this slow the 7200 drive down as in access time when not accessing the 5400 drive.

KenKun · October 29th, 2002, 07:59 PM

Only when you copy files between the two drives ...
Other than that i can`t think of reason why it should slow down the faster drive ... loading programs from the faster drive will be the same as if it was the only drive in your box...

Welcome to TechIMO

Regards

the.cipher · October 29th, 2002, 08:04 PM

what got me is that he got the information off of the net and did not care to check his info against anything else. has you are aware not everthing on the net is what it seems. and can be misleading.

thank you for your reply

Ruler2112 · October 30th, 2002, 04:01 AM

I've got two drives on my primary channel- one 54 and one 72. The 72 is the slave and when writing large files (editing waves normally) I can really tell the difference in how long it takes to save based on what drive I save to.

PonzSpyder · October 30th, 2002, 04:34 PM

He may have been confusing IDE with SCSI hard drives. Some older SCSI harddrives had this issue when mixing SE and LVD drives on the same chain.

the.cipher · October 30th, 2002, 09:53 PM

cheers chaps I think we are all agreed on that one.

thank you all for your imput.

Richard Cranium · October 30th, 2002, 10:01 PM

One more item.

When using ATA/33 for instance on the same IDE cable as a ATA/100 drive, the 'rumor' is that the faster drive will be slowed to the ATA/33 speed.

Can't remember if this was for the system, or just when transfering files between the two.

Another item of interest regarding drive RPM and data transfer rate.

I've checked several OEM Maxtor & WD 20g 7200 rpm drives.
These came in at 14-18 mb/sec

Strangely, some Retail Maxtor 5400 rpm drives, one a 20g the other a 40g showed sustained transfer rates of 44-57 mb/sec

Yup, you read right, the 5400 rpm drives were FASTER than the 7200's

A Quantum Fireball "AS" drive, 20g 7200 showed up at only 22 mb/sec or so..

Just FYI

Ruler2112 · November 1st, 2002, 02:44 AM

I would think density affects the data transfer rate. Higher number of bits read per revolution = higher transfer at slower speed.

Richard Cranium · November 1st, 2002, 09:40 PM

Agreed Ruler, I wonder if my setup is at fault, or does the Mfg's quick format make them perform better.

Seeing data transfer rates over double makes me feel sure something is awry.

Ruler2112 · November 2nd, 2002, 02:28 AM

How are you testing the sustained data transfer rate Richard? I'm interested in playing around with my system and seeing how it acts. (HDs on the same and different channels, alone, together, etc.)

I kinda doubt if the mfg's format makes a difference, but anything's possible I guess. (Possibly the interleave factor is changed with the retail to provide optimum performance, but 315% higher does indicate something else going on.)