What about RPM's

[B-N-ME]

Hi! I'm new here and I have a big problem I hope someone can help me with.
I just purchased a new computer. I work a lot with graphics and because the work is too time consuming to risk loosing everything I always back everything up on a second hard-drive (because it is so much quicker to access than a cd.)
Anyway my question is my old computer already has 40 gig hard drive that I would like to take out and install in the new one.
However I'm a little confused about rpm compatability. I know for sure that the original drive in the new computer is 7200 rpm and I beleive the old may be only 5200 rpm.
Can anyone tell me PLEASE how do I check the rpm of an installed drive without having the original paperwork. Is there someway to get stats about my harddrives right off my computer or not. If anyone knows please write. I really have to have another hard drive and I don't want to put one in that is going to slow down my computer for me.
Thanks to anyone who can help

[mjc]

If you are going to use the drive as a backup device the just stick it in as a slave on the secondary IDE channel (or even the primary) it won't slow you down. If it is 5400 then it will be a little slower to access but overall your performance won't suffer.

[Budfred]

Welcome to http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif

You can find out details about the drive by looking at the label on it. Even if you can't decipher the details from the writing on it, it will tell you the maker and part/model number so you can look up specs at the maker's website. However, as mjc said, you can use it even if it is 5400, you won't notice the difference.

Budfred

[B-N-ME]

Thanks guys for the replys and advice. I do access a lot of graphics off of my 2nd drive as well because once they are backed up they stay there and often are erased off my primary drive. I really use my 2nd drive exclusively for storing and accessing data that I have saved. mostly graphics as I said before.(I always back it up to c.d.'s as well just incase I would loose my 2nd drive or any of the data off it. So I use that 2nd drive a lot! Do you think the fact that I use it so much will make enough of a differance to possably consider purchasing a faster one? A slight loss in speed won't be any great tradgidy. Right now I'm feeling much better about puting the drive in knowing that it won't really make all that much differance as far as speed is concerned. Thanks again.

[Budfred]

The difference would be observable on benchmark tests, but not likely to be visible to you otherwise. You can certainly opt for a faster drive, but compared to 7200 RPM, the difference is minimal. I have heard that sometimes a really good quality 5400 may even run faster than a crummy 7200. Drives can be had for really good prices these days, so if you are worried about, go for 7200.

Budfred

[saphalline]

The hard fact of the matter (no pun intended) is that HD rpm's don't slow down a PC system as a whole just by itself. The rpm's affect the drive's speed at reading/writing data, yes, but most of all the ATA spec affects the system. Chances are the 40GB drive has an ATA spec of at least ATA/66, probably ATA/100. The top right now is ATA/133, but offers little real performance benefits over ATA/100 because no hard drive on the planet comes close to transferring data at 133MB per second. The best HD's today can reach speeds in the low 40's of MB per second of constant data throughput, but burst speeds often exceed the 66MB per second limit of the old ATA/66 spec.

Doesn't really matter anyway 'cause ATA specs are all backwards compatible, and mixing an ATA/66 or ATA/33 device with ATA/100 or ATA/133 devices doesn't slow down the faster ones. Turns out they all just run at whatever speed they can. It eliminates the guesswork, mostly, so that you can just add/remove devices at your whim without worrying about how the device array as a whole will operate. Of course, you still have to worry about the master/slave jumpers...

SCSI, on the other hand, is completely the opposite of this, but is so outrageously expensive that no store-bought or mail-order PC is likely to have SCSI. The controller cards themselves cost hundreds, and the drives are 3-10 times more expensive than their IDE/ATA counterparts.

Go ahead and add the other 40GB hard drive. The cool thing about IDE/ATA devices is that they regulate themselves.

[classicsoftware]

There is more to performance than RPM's. There are some 5400 RPM drives that are faster than 7200 RPm drives. It depends on how much cache is on the drive itself.

That being said, it will work great in your system go for it...