# 5400 vs 7200 for internal drive



## musicalweather (May 4, 2019)

I need to replace an internal drive which is failing. This drive would hold lots of small, older sample libraries, mostly Kontakt, none too demanding. The big libraries, like the Berlin Main libraries, reside on SSDs (on a separate machine). 

The failing drive is a spin-up drive and has performed fine as far as speed. It's just that it's starting to make clunking sounds and sometimes disappears from the list of drives.

The conventional wisdom is that 7200 is always better for a spin-up drive than 5400, but I've also read recently that the 5400 spec is _not_ that important for performance, that you can get a comparable performance these days with a 5400 drive. 

Your thoughts?

My specs: Windows 7 Pro, i7-3770K @ 3.50 GHz, 32 GB ram, VE Pro 6 (slave machine)


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## Dewdman42 (May 4, 2019)

Get an SSD. Spin up drives are ancient technology. I'd only get a spinning drive these days for something that needs to be big and hold lots of TB's of data and doesn't have to be fast. Then SSD would be cost prohibitive, so I'd suffer with ancient spinning drives. Your boot drive should absolutely be SSD if that's what you're talking bout.

that being said

5400 is fine for business use, 7200 is what you want if you are going to try to record tracks or read samples to the ancient spinning drive or for a server or something. 7200 drives are also more expensive and louder. So if you can make do with 5400, might as well, but please see my previous paragraph.


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## musicalweather (May 4, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> Your boot drive should absolutely be SSD if that's what you're talking bout.


No, this is not a boot drive. My boot drive is an SSD. I also have another SSD for high-demand libraries. Then I have two more spin-up drives for various libraries, one of which is failing. This is a slave machine which receives midi from and sends audio through VE Pro to a MacBook Pro which has my DAW.


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## Dewdman42 (May 4, 2019)

well you can certainly save some money with the spinning drives..and particularly for large amounts of data. If its not too big, I rather reccomend still that you go SSD all the way. SSD's will not fail as much as spinning drive, they are quieter, faster and better in every way. Smaller ones aren't that expensive anymore. But if you need to store a lot more data, then it might be worth it to use spinning, and I think you should use 5400 and not care about performance. if you care about performance enough to ask ab out 7200, then get ssd.


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## Soundhound (May 4, 2019)

What Dewdman said - I wouldn't use a 5400 speed drive for any samples, the load times will be terrible and you'll have bottleneck problems. If you really need to use a spinning drive(s) definitely go 7200. It will still be slow as hell, but you can do it.


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## Przemek K. (May 4, 2019)

For backup purposes a 5400 speed drive is fine although personally I'd use a 7200 one. If possible get a ssd, you'll love it. Loading times of samples is just so much faster


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## steveo42 (May 4, 2019)

Go 7200.. Also, a slower drive on the same channel as faster drives may or may not effect things.. I once had one of those WD "green drives" used only as backup, on the same channel as my sample drive and it caused havoc when it would go to sleep..


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## bill5 (May 10, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> well you can certainly save some money with the spinning drives..and particularly for large amounts of data. If its not too big, I rather reccomend still that you go SSD all the way. SSD's will not fail as much as spinning drive, they are quieter, faster and better in every way. Smaller ones aren't that expensive anymore. But if you need to store a lot more data, then it might be worth it to use spinning, and I think you should use 5400 and not care about performance. if you care about performance enough to ask ab out 7200, then get ssd.


Having just foolishly gone from a 7200 to a 5400 so I could get a bigger HD, I disagree. If budget dictates not getting a huge SSD, for the love of god get the least expensive 7200 you can find. The diff at least in my experience is night and day.


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## dzilizzi (May 10, 2019)

I don't have too many problems with my 7200 RPM drives and I use them for some of the bigger libraries also. I am slowly buying and moving to SSD, but when you can get a 4TB 72000 RPM drive for the same price or less than a 1TB SSD, the HDD wins out for a hobbyist at least.

I've heard the same thing said about 5400 drives, but I'm not sure I would use them for anything other than data.


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## Dewdman42 (May 10, 2019)

As I said earlier, unless you are recording tracks or streaming tracks or samples from it, or booting from it, 5400 is perfectly fine. But spend your money as you wish.


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## bill5 (May 10, 2019)

Yeah if you're using a 5400 for pure storage and not accessing frequently. Not otherwise.


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## Dewdman42 (May 10, 2019)

frequently doesn't matter either. Its only if you need super speed. You are not going to notice ANY difference opening your spreadsheet with 5400 vs 7200. You're just spending money for a noisier drive. If you need performance get SSD and stop screwing around with spinning disks.


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## sostenuto (May 10, 2019)

7200 noisier & hotter ….
Have (4) in 8TB NAS backup system, chosen for reliability 24/7.
Would be my choice for large, long-term storage needs, Int /Ext.


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## chimuelo (May 11, 2019)

This year HDD Sales are off by 49%, last year SSDs became cheaper.
If HDD is a must I’ve got a pair of Seagate Momentus XL Hybrid SSHDs that have 32GBs of SSD Level cache then 1TB of storage on 7200 rpm devices.

They’re fast due to the Cache. I don’t notice any performance difference when using them. But my mission critical stage rigs are SSD only. Moving parts make me nervous.

But for 8 years these work great, didn’t slow down like my OCZ Vertex SSDs.

I’m sure the 2TB Models I looked at recently for 75 bucks would be great and by the end of summer when retailers report back that certain products aren’t moving, the next step is price them to move or send them back.

I see 50 for 2 TBs in our future.
I’ve got a giant Microsemi RAID Array with 6 x SSDs.
I would love to double it’s size since it’s archiving videos and HTPC/ Gaming.


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## DavidY (May 11, 2019)

chimuelo said:


> If HDD is a must I’ve got a pair of Seagate Momentus XL Hybrid SSHDs that have 32GBs of SSD Level cache then 1TB of storage on 7200 rpm devices.


Are they (or equivalents) still being made?

When I look at the Seagate website all I've found are the Firecuda disks which have 8GB of cache which I don't think is enough (having got a 2TB one in this laptop). Sadly the 2.5 inch Firecudas are 5400 though, so once you've got past the small cache, it's just a slow disk.

But with only one drive bay in this laptop (and not the budget for a 2TB SSD) it seemed like a good idea at the time. If I had to do it again I might opt for a 7200 regular spinning disk in the same position.


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## chimuelo (May 11, 2019)

I wrote faster than my brain, sorry, 32MBs cache and 4GBs, the newer ones use 8GB SSD level front ends.

Mine stream fine with the smaller 4GB.
I have it loading samples for Omnisphere and Streaming.
Only device I saw any noticeable difference was Omnisphere STEAM Folder on its own NMVe.
Before I loaded up Omnisphere Multis between songs.
Now I can load immediately during a performance like a ROMpler.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 11, 2019)

How much storage do you need? As lots of people have said, SSDs have come way down and there's no comparison.

If you decide to get a spinning drive, you'll save 35¢ on the 5400 RPM one if you're lucky. They're not designed for streaming, they're for light duty.

The only 5400 RPM spinning drives I have are USB-powered portable ones I use for one of my alternating back-ups, which I swap between my office/studio and my car. Their advantage is that they're small and don't take up a lot of room in my glove compartment.


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## bill5 (May 12, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> frequently doesn't matter either. Its only if you need super speed. You are not going to notice ANY difference opening your spreadsheet with 5400 vs 7200.


My experience has been otherwise. FWIW


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