The Underscore Archives

2008/4/13 Simon Dingley <newsgroups at creativenrg.co.uk>:
 It seems
>  that there are plenty 3.5" running at 7200RPM but when you find a 2.5"
>  of equivalent size the speeds drop to 5400RPM - is there a reason for
>  this?

Power consumption, heat and really the fact that it isn't as needed -
on a 2.5" drive, the data density is higher than on a 3.5" drive
(through either higher density platters, or more platters and more
heads), which means in real terms a 2.5" 7200rpm drive is a better
performer than a 3.5" 7200rpm drive.  Thus you can largely get away
with 5400rpm drives.

Regards
Richard