How to buy hard drive? Typical drives spin at 5400rpm (rpm = rotations per minute); better ones spin at 7200rpm ; the fastest drives spin at 10000rpm. However, drives that spin at 7200rpm come with up to 1TB(1000GB) of storage capacity, but drives that spin at 10000rpm come with only up to 150GB.
In fact, the faster the disks spin, the faster the data is read or written. Hard drive that spin slower than 5400rpm can considerably slow down your computer. So when you are buying a hard drive, no matter how would you use it, you should look for one that comes with rotational speed of at least 5400rpm. Otherwise it will just be too slow for your purposes. However, speed of 7200rpm is the most recommended for both internal and external hard drive.
For crazy gamers, if you don’t need much storage capacity, a 10000rpm hard drive is a right choice for you. This boosts up your performance but limits capacity, since most 10000rpm hard drives offer low storage capacity of not more than 150GB.