{"id":398,"date":"2018-10-20T10:23:58","date_gmt":"2018-10-20T17:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/?p=398"},"modified":"2019-05-25T19:42:11","modified_gmt":"2019-05-26T02:42:11","slug":"hard-drive-spindle-speed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard Drive Spindle Speed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As hard disks become more advanced, virtually every component in them is required to do more and work harder, and the spindle motor is no exception. As discussed in detail here, increasing the speed at which the platters spin improves both positioning and transfer performance: the data can be read off the disk faster during sequential operations, and rotational latency–the time that the heads must wait for the correct sector number to come under the head–is also reduced, improving random operations. For this reason, there has been a push to increase the speed of the spindle motor, and more than at any other time in the past, hard disk spin speeds are changing rapidly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one time all PC hard disks spun at 3,600 RPM; in fact, for the first 10 years of the PC’s existence, that was all there was. One reason for this is that their designs were based on the old designs of large, pre-PC hard disks that used AC<\/a> motors, and standard North American AC power is 60 Hz per second: 3,600 RPM. In the early 1990s manufacturers began to realize how much performance could be improved by increasing spindle speeds. The next step up from 3,600 RPM was 4,500 RPM; 5,400 RPM soon followed and became a standard for many years. From there speeds have steadily marched upwards. Usually, faster PC hard disk speeds “debut” on SCSI drives that are used in higher-performance applications, and then filter down to IDE\/ATA a few years later. At one time 7,200 RPM spindles were only found on top-of-the-line SCSI drives; they are now being used in consumer IDE\/ATA disks sold at retail while SCSI has moved on to loftier heights. This table shows the most common PC spindle speeds, their associated average rotational latency, and their typical applications as of early 2000:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spindle Speed (RPM)<\/strong><\/td>Average Latency (Half Rotation) (ms)<\/strong><\/td>Typical Current Applications<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
3,600<\/strong><\/td>8.3<\/td>Former standard, now obsolete<\/td><\/tr>
4,200<\/strong><\/td>7.1<\/td>Laptops<\/td><\/tr>
4,500<\/strong><\/td>6.7<\/td>IBM Microdrive, laptops<\/td><\/tr>
4,900<\/strong><\/td>6.1<\/td>Laptops<\/td><\/tr>
5,200<\/strong><\/td>5.8<\/td>Obsolete<\/td><\/tr>
5,400<\/strong><\/td>5.6<\/td>Low-end  IDE\/ATA, laptops<\/td><\/tr>
7,200<\/strong><\/td>4.2<\/td>High-end IDE\/ATA, Low-end SCSI<\/td><\/tr>
10,000<\/strong><\/td>3.0<\/td>High-end SCSI<\/td><\/tr>
12,000<\/strong><\/td>2.5<\/td>High-end SCSI<\/td><\/tr>
15,000<\/strong><\/td>2.0<\/td>Top-of-the-line SCSI<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n

Note:<\/strong> Hard disks for laptops and specialty applications come in a wide variety of spindle speeds, even beyond the several speeds listed above. I have not exhaustively researched and listed these here.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasing spindle motor speed creates many design challenges, particularly aimed at keeping vibration and heat under control. As discussed here, when the motor spins faster these become more of an issue; some high-end drives have very serious heat, vibration and noise problems that require special mounting and cooling work to allow them to run without problems. To some extent, there is a trade off between spindle speed, and the heat and noise issue. Engineers generally focus on keeping these matters under control, and usually improve them significantly after the first generation of drives at any given spindle speed. However, in some applications, using a slower and quieter drive can make sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
The PC Guide<\/strong>
Site Version: 2.2.0 – Version Date: April 17, 2001
\u00a9 Copyright 1997-2004 Charles M. Kozierok. All Rights Reserved.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

This is an archive of Charles M. Kozierok’s PCGuide (pcguide.com) which disappeared from the internet in 2018. We wanted to preserve Charles M. Kozierok’s knowledge about computers and are permanently hosting a selection of important pages from PCGuide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As hard disks become more advanced, virtually every component in them is required to do more and work harder, and the spindle motor is no exception. As discussed in detail here, increasing the speed at which the platters spin improves both positioning and transfer performance: the data can be read off the disk faster during sequential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16,40,48],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computerrepair","tag-computer-repair","tag-hard-drive","tag-pcguide"],"yoast_head":"\nHard Drive Spindle Speed - Computer Repair Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hard Drive Spindle Speed - Computer Repair Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As hard disks become more advanced, virtually every component in them is required to do more and work harder, and the spindle motor is no exception. As discussed in detail here, increasing the speed at which the platters spin improves both positioning and transfer performance: the data can be read off the disk faster during sequential […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Computer Repair Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/karlstechnology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kc7txm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-10-20T17:23:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-05-26T02:42:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"kc7txm\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"kc7txm\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"kc7txm\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f937c8fa616d9030d2d4716afcfe5a86\"},\"headline\":\"Hard Drive Spindle Speed\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-10-20T17:23:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-05-26T02:42:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/\"},\"wordCount\":554,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"computer repair\",\"hard drive\",\"PCGuide\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Computer Repair\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/\",\"name\":\"Hard Drive Spindle Speed - Computer Repair Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-10-20T17:23:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-05-26T02:42:11+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Hard Drive Spindle Speed\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Computer Repair Blog\",\"description\":\"Karls Technology Computer Repair\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Karls Technology\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/karlstechnology.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/karlstechnology.png\",\"width\":800,\"height\":99,\"caption\":\"Karls Technology\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/karlstechnology\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/karlstechnology\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f937c8fa616d9030d2d4716afcfe5a86\",\"name\":\"kc7txm\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c44100002e6b21935601483ae93b357?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c44100002e6b21935601483ae93b357?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"kc7txm\"},\"description\":\"Matt Karls has a PhD in IT and is an Electrical Engineer. He works in management within the software development, IT and SEO fields and is the owner of Karls Technology. He has four kids and lives in the Phoenix metro area (when he is not travelling around to our different offices).\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kc7txm\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/matthew-daniel-karls-b2b16365\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/kc7txm\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/kc7txm\",\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/User:Kc7txm\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/author\/kc7txm\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hard Drive Spindle Speed - Computer Repair Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hard Drive Spindle Speed - Computer Repair Blog","og_description":"As hard disks become more advanced, virtually every component in them is required to do more and work harder, and the spindle motor is no exception. As discussed in detail here, increasing the speed at which the platters spin improves both positioning and transfer performance: the data can be read off the disk faster during sequential […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/","og_site_name":"Computer Repair Blog","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/karlstechnology","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kc7txm","article_published_time":"2018-10-20T17:23:58+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-05-26T02:42:11+00:00","author":"kc7txm","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"kc7txm","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/"},"author":{"name":"kc7txm","@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f937c8fa616d9030d2d4716afcfe5a86"},"headline":"Hard Drive Spindle Speed","datePublished":"2018-10-20T17:23:58+00:00","dateModified":"2019-05-26T02:42:11+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/"},"wordCount":554,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#organization"},"keywords":["computer repair","hard drive","PCGuide"],"articleSection":["Computer Repair"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/","url":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/","name":"Hard Drive Spindle Speed - Computer Repair Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-10-20T17:23:58+00:00","dateModified":"2019-05-26T02:42:11+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/hard-drive-spindle-speed\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hard Drive Spindle Speed"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/","name":"Computer Repair Blog","description":"Karls Technology Computer Repair","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Karls Technology","url":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/karlstechnology.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/karlstechnology.png","width":800,"height":99,"caption":"Karls Technology"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/karlstechnology","https:\/\/x.com\/karlstechnology"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f937c8fa616d9030d2d4716afcfe5a86","name":"kc7txm","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c44100002e6b21935601483ae93b357?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c44100002e6b21935601483ae93b357?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"kc7txm"},"description":"Matt Karls has a PhD in IT and is an Electrical Engineer. He works in management within the software development, IT and SEO fields and is the owner of Karls Technology. He has four kids and lives in the Phoenix metro area (when he is not travelling around to our different offices).","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kc7txm","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/matthew-daniel-karls-b2b16365\/","https:\/\/x.com\/kc7txm","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/kc7txm","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/User:Kc7txm"],"url":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/author\/kc7txm\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400,"href":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karlstechnology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}