Best Gaming HDD

1

#1Filipino

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 25, 2008
Messages
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whats the best gaming hard drive? I heard that the Seagate 7200.11 32mb cache are faster than the WD raptor X 16mb cache. Slowly buying parts for a new system.

Currently I might get this for my OS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148309

I have a Seagate 320gb 16mb 7200.10 for music/movies/misc.

And for games I might get the Seagate 7200.11 32mb cache 500gb or the WD Raptor X 16mb cache 150gb. Depending on which one is faster I will get the faster one.
I was reading a review for the Seagate 500gb 7200.11 32mb cache one and the reviewer said you must remove a shunt pin to receive the full speed of the HD, is this true or no? Also whats a shunt pin?

Thanks,
Mark
 
if you want performance, you'd have to go for raptors. seeing as how you want to have performance, you should put your OS on a faster HD than the one you linked. the pin is a little jumper pin/cable in the back of the drive.
 
Since all you need is about 15gb for Windows Vista 64bit home premium. Is this a viable HD for an OS to install on?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136054

Also removing the pin from the Seagate since a reviewer said it will make it go faster, is there any draw backs for removing that?

Also i read this on a review on new egg:
Booting Vista x86 in RAID0 configuration. Decreased boot time by about 20 seconds (from around 1:45). Keep in mind that the boot time reduction was also a function of much tweaking, including but not limited to: Turning of Exec Paging, Defraging boot files to front of discs, removing system sounds, removing fonts, disabling unneeded services, delayed start services not needed during boot, etc. These are definitely louder than a 7200rpm, but not exceedingly so. I have mine in a full-size Thermaltake Armor, under my desk. You can hear it working if you're listening for it, but eventually it blends in with all the other noises of daily life. If you've got plenty of storage and money, and you need a little more performance, then it's completely worth it assuming that you are willing to dedicate time to tweaking your system as well. If, however, you're strapped for cash and you're expecting dramatic results, hang tight for awhile or get a couple of larger drives.
Click to expand...

What are these things hes talking about? are the stuff he removed really needed if not how would i do this for future reference?
 
Any hard drive if big enough is viable to install an OS on.
I think you wanted to ask a different question.

The pin is used to make the drive compatible with older hardware.
Remove it to get its full speed.

The review on Newegg is about using 2 drives in RAID which means the drives are linked together to give double the speed.
They dont really give double the speed but it is a bit faster in general use with 2 drives and scales the more drives are put in the RAID array.
RAID 0 does not include any error detection+correction and thus if a drive fails you lose all your data, so RAID 0 carries a risk.

I wouldnt bother working out anything, I'd just get a new 500GB or 750GB drive.
It will be plenty fast and if you need faster, you can always RAID them later.
 
36GB is too small for OS+Apps+Games. Find a used 76GB from someone here instead.

As for windows tweaking, try msconfig. If you have a lot of junkware starting, then it can help your system load times dramatically. But removing fonts? That sounds like some serious e-peen competition there.

I tend to agree with a lot of people around here. If you're just looking to load games faster, get a new model 7200rpm drive instead of a raptor. You'll save money, get the same or slightly better performance, and have more storage space. If you're running 10 apps at once, then get the raptor, because it will benefit from the reduced seek time.
 
Since all you need is about 15gb for Windows Vista 64bit home premium. Is this a viable HD for an OS to install on?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136054
Click to expand...

No, I just upgraded from a 36 gig scsi drive on my old main system. I've been having space issues on it for more than a year. By the time you load and update the OS, install all of your apps and games, you may be approaching 60-70 % full. The fuller a drive is, the sooner it starts to fragment.

Also, the 36 gig Raptors were the first generation of the family, and are somewhat slower than the newer models.

Also, my secondary rig is running on a 36 gig Raptor, and I hope to replace it in the next 6 months or so. I've started having to clean that drive every couple of months now too.

I went with the 7200.11 500 gig because of Seagate's 5 year warranty, and it is only $120 right now.

Don
 
ah okay, also I hear that Vista takes "pictures" and saves what you have on your HD, but it takes up alot of space. Can you disable that?
 
I have that same drive, the 7200.11, but the 500GB version.

If it's faster or slower than a Raptor seems to be debatable, but the fact should remain that you get a lot more space with the 7200.11. It might be marginally slower, but the extra space makes up for it IMHO.

I have a 7200.10 with 16MB cache too (500mb). There seems to be a pretty good difference between these two drives.

#1Filipino said:
ah okay, also I hear that Vista takes "pictures" and saves what you have on your HD, but it takes up alot of space. Can you disable that?
Click to expand...

Yes, but IDK how.
 
Also removing the pin from the Seagate since a reviewer said it will make it go faster, is there any draw backs for removing that?
Click to expand...

Oh yea, I just got a 7200.11. They ship it from the factory with the jumper set for SATA I mode for compatibility reasons. I ran HD Tune on it before and after the jumper was in place, and the only thing that changed was the burst speed went from 105 MB/sec to 183 MB/sec.

Of course those morons used a half height jumper, so you need a jewelers screwdriver or a fine point needle nose plier to get it out.

Don
 
The smaller the better. I actually pried it out with a jewelers screwdriver.

It will work fine as is. If you decide to get it, just wait until you have it in your hands and you can figure the best way to pull it out. It's not difficult, just annoying.

Don
 
If you play games is the hard drive fast when loading maps? if you don't play games, is it still fast with the things you load?
 
Of my previous 2 systems, 1 had an U160 10K 36 gig SCSI, and the other had a 36 gig Raptor, and the 7200.11 seems faster than either.

Here are the HD Tune results for all 5 drives currently installed in my various systems.

2.8 Gig Athlon 2.8 with 1 gig ram

36 gig Raptor
Min 34
max 54
av 47
access 8.7
Burst 82
Cpu 4.6%

40 Gig Maxtor IDE
Min 36
max 58
av 50
access 16
Burst 99
CPU 5.5%

Dual Xeon 2.66 with 1 gig ram

36 gig U160 SCSI
min 5.3
max 34
av 30
access 7.4
burst 72
cpu .9%

And my new system with modern hard drive
Q6600 2 gig ram
500 gig 7200.11
min 46
max 106
av79
access 13
burst 183
cpu 1.6%

And with an old drive in a new system
40 gig maxtor IDE same model as above
min 36
max 57
av 49
access 14
burst 22
1.3%


It's weird, I never benchmarked the Raptor or SCSI drives before, because I just assumed they would be much faster than a generic IDE drive, but that is not the case.

Anyways, the 7200.11, or any of the other modern drives will prolly smoke anything that you are using now. I guess that esplains why my new drive seems faster than the old ones. Because it is.

Don
 
K thats what i wanted to hear, I will get that new Seagate sooner or later.

Thanks,
Mark
 
Drive 1
Image1-1.jpg


Drive 2
Image2.jpg


RAID1 (motherboard)
RAIDspeedtest.jpg


Mini jumpers.
Picture025small.jpg
 
I have a question about this jumper as well. I want to buy the newest Seagate 1TB drive with perpendicular recording and 32MB Cache. I read that you have to remove the jumper to get full speed. Now if I buy the FreeAgent 1TB external drive from Seagate and utilize external SATA, how can I remove this jumper ?
 
Don't waste your money on a Raptor. WD hasn't refreshed the product line in some time and they are no longer the fastest drives out there. The only advantage they have over the latest 7200rpm drives is their seek time. Seek time is generally not all that important for a normal single user workload. This is because your hard drive as a gamer spends very little time jumping all over the place, certainly not enough to cause performance degradation unless you have many concurrent I/O requests on the drive at once, like you would in a server.

People will say they "feel" like a Raptor is faster, but from a mathematical standpoint the few milliseconds of seek time is not humanly perceptible. People like to claim that folders open faster and so forth but that has very little to do with seek time in the first place, and they are feeling something else.

For a gamer, sequential transfer rate is more important, it reduces load times somewhat, and if you're taxed on memory and swapping to your hard drive, the "stuttering" will be less noticeable. Go with a fast, modern, big 7200rpm. At least until WD releases a new Raptor.
 
The Raptors spin at 10,000 rpm so they are noticably faster. I simply would prefer more space and waiting for a little longer on load than to get those small raptor drives. Raptors also cost more. again, i'd prefer two big sata drives than to pay more for a raptor drive!
 
The Raptors spin at 10,000 rpm so they are noticably faster.
Click to expand...

When the Raptors first came out, they were faster in every category. Today, the ONLY category they lead in is seek time. Their real world advantage is gone! For the same money as you would pay for a 150 gig Raptor, you can get a 750 gig drive that will match the Raptors in real world performance.

I have a 36 gig Raptor in my other system, and my new 7200.11 smokes it in the benchmarks and in "feel."

Now, a 10K drive with a high density platter and 32 meg of cache would be awesome. What if they decide they can take them to 15K?

WD has been milking this cow long enough. Time for them to spend a little cash and make a change.

Don
 
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