WHEN 7200 RPM hard drives first appeared on the market, many people wondered when 10k RPM drives would appear.

The first 7200 RPM drives from Seagate were quite noisy, and heat was a big issue as always. Initial gains in the transition from 5400 RPM were not as high as expected. Nevertheless there was speculation that 10k consumer drives would appear within several years because all of the large companies were already using 10k SCSI drives and Seagate's 15k RPM Cheetah's were already in sight.

Of course today anybody that is knowledgeable chooses 7200 RPM drives if they can. The cost difference is negligible, performance gains have solidified, and reliability problems have for the most part been quelled. But consumer level 10k drives have still not appeared 5 years later.

Read More
News Source