Secondary HDD: 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm?

[KealiaCliq]

My laptop has a 128GB SSD that the OS and main programs I use are stored on, but since there is a spot for a secondary hdd, I'd like to add 500-750GB of storage for music, pictures, videos, maybe some games, etc.
I've searched around and read a lot of debates between 5400 and 7200 rpm, but nothing that quite answered my questions (using as a secondary drive)
So here are my questions.

1) Is the speed between 5400 rpm and 7200 rpm even noticeable?

2) Do modern 7200 rpm hard drives consume more battery and make your computer hotter than 5400 rpm?

3) Which is more important for speed, rpm or cache size?

If you have any insight you can share with me I'd really appreciate it. =D
Thanks!

 

[Ra_V_en]

Its not your OS drive, so price/GB is more valuable information than any of those questions you have asked. Also you say its storage drive... it only proves cheaper drive is the choice. If you can get the same size of 7200 rpm drive, do that if not .. its not so important imo.
It would be totally different story if you would have to install os on it, performance difference would be very noticeable in that scenario.
About power consumption... well comparing to any CPU or GPU usage it's totally non relevant, 7200 will take probably some few milliwatts more but comparing to performance boost it means nothing. If its storage drive it will be idling most of the time anyways.

 

[KealiaCliq]

So if it's used for storage, just go with whatever is the best price, okay. Thanks for your answer!
The only reason I brought up power usage is since this is a laptop, and some others said adding a 7200 rpm to their laptop took away 1 1/2 - 2 hours of their battery life. Will it not affect battery life if its just used for storage?

 

[synphul]

7200rpm drives do take a little more power than 5400rpm, so long as you can live with slower read speeds when accessing data, the 5400 is cheaper. Both rotation speed and cache affect performance. 7200 is much more responsive. I haven't read where 7200rpm's take close to 2hrs off the life of a battery, it may depend on power saving options used. Granted it will spend a lot of its' time idling, but when you need the data a 5400rpm drive will still be noticeably slower.

 

[KealiaCliq]

7200rpm drives do take a little more power than 5400rpm, so long as you can live with slower read speeds when accessing data, the 5400 is cheaper. Both rotation speed and cache affect performance. 7200 is much more responsive. I haven't read where 7200rpm's take close to 2hrs off the life of a battery, it may depend on power saving options used. Granted it will spend a lot of its' time idling, but when you need the data a 5400rpm drive will still be noticeably slower.

Thanks
For the same price, one hdd is 5400 RPM and 64 MB cache and one is 7200 RPM and 32 MB, which one will be faster generally? (assuming brand and everything else is the same)

 

[LordConrad]

The 7200 rpm drive will be faster, but i would go with the 5400 for two reasons:

1) Your OS and important apps are on the SSD so speed is not a big issue.

2) Laptops have limited cooling ability. Under normal circumstances the little bit of extra heat generated by the 7200rpm hard drive isn't a big deal, but if your laptop is under heavy load (gaming, video encoding, etc.) that 7200 rpm drive might start running rather hot.