Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

RPM vs transfer rate

Feb 24, 2011 5:28PM PST

I need to buy a portable hard disk. What is the effect of Rpm on the transfer rate of portable hard disk?

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
continued...
Feb 24, 2011 5:46PM PST

And I also need to know which is better in performance:
1.a portable hard disk
2.an internal hard drive for notebook which is used as a usb device by sata to usb converter

- Collapse -
Re: performance
Feb 24, 2011 5:55PM PST

Same disk, same performance. What's in a name?

Kees

- Collapse -
Re: transfer rate
Feb 24, 2011 5:53PM PST

The transfer rate should be mentioned in the specs of the disc. Use that. But transfer rate certainly isn't the only factor that's relevant. Seek and search time are more important when determining how fast a disk is to transfer a file than the actual transfer rate.

The seek and search determine how much time is spent to NOT transfer. The transfer rate only determines how fast it the actual transfer is. Also the cache on the disk might be a factor.

But, of course, if the same disk turns slower, it's slower overall.

Kees

- Collapse -
This is where
Feb 24, 2011 11:27PM PST

This is where BENCHMARKS matter. You can go over all the specs and forget one such as seek time, media speeds (this one has little attention?) and the rest but to avoid trying to guess which is better I look at the BENCHMARK.
Bob