Need for Really Fast Hard Drives?

[Cormac]

What is the need for a really fast (RPM) HD? I am talking 15K rpm or faster. I was talking with someone that I work with that said he would like to build his own computer. One of the things that he said that he wanted was HD with a rotational speed of 15K or faster. I told him, from my understanding, that unless he was doing "intense" video or graphic editing, 10K is more than you would ever need.

Am I close to being right?

p.s. The most that he wants to do with this "dream" 'puter is to watch movies.

 

[ChrisA]

What is the need for a really fast (RPM) HD? I am talking 15K rpm or faster. I was talking with someone that I work with that said he would like to build his own computer. One of the things that he said that he wanted was HD with a rotational speed of 15K or faster. I told him, from my understanding, that unless he was doing "intense" video or graphic editing, 10K is more than you would ever need.

Am I close to being right?

p.s. The most that he wants to do with this "dream" 'puter is to watch movies.

The real reason he wants them is "bragging rights".

But really what matters for video work is the sustained transfer rates. That's bytes per second over some period of time. 15K RPM will not help that. What the fast spin rate does address id latency. That means the average time to access some data. On average, as luck (or statistics) woud have it the data you need will be, on average 180 degrees from the read/write head and you will have to wait, on average for one half a rotation period for the data to spin around to the head. This is just pure "down time". Those 15K drives are good for a DBMS server or maybe a file server for a large office. In each case the disk will get many, many requests for short amounts of data unlike the video edit case where it will get a few requests for large amounts of data.

If he is just watching movies then He's be best off with one of those "energy star" "green" drives. He does not need performance. After all, is he trying to watch a 2 hour movie in 15 minutes. Any disk drive can play a movie in real time.

 

[Sun Baked]

Unless you are doing some hefty database operations that include a lot of random accesses, the improved seek times likely won't mean too much.

 

[Cormac]

The real reason he wants them is "bragging rights".

Thanks. That's about what I thought the answer would be.