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Need advice on faster disk drive

LordBritish

LordBritish

2[H]4U
Joined
Jan 28, 2001
Messages
2,063
I have a really old Opteron 160 computer I built years ago.

It still does the job for now.

It has a WD 250gb 7200 RPM SATA drive which is pretty slow.

I would like something faster w/o spending a lot of money.

Should I get something like a 60gb SSD to augment my 250gb HDD and copy my WinXP partition to the SSD?

Or should I simply get a faster 300gb+ HDD, may be 10,000 rpm?
 
SSD is the single biggest performance increase I have ever experienced. The jump from mechanical disk to SSD is well worth it.
 
SSDs on XP can be a major disappointment. You are warned. You can take a chance, or ...
Hunt down a last-couple-of-weeks thread discussing a deal on a swift WD VelociRaptor; or, ...
Upgrade to Win7.

-- UhClem
 
ssd on windows xp is not a major disappointment, simply because windows xp doesn't try and use 15gb+ of space for its default install. align it manually in gparted to 1mb and that's it, it will perform just fine.
 
XP Pro is fine, ea. time microsoft moves to a new OS, there is always some software that has problems w/ the new OS. Just make sure you are verse in the Trim software by intel
 
If you have a slow CPU from years ago, your drive will not make much of a difference.
 
Just make sure you align the partition, otherwise you will take a hit to write performance.
 
Re: SSDs on WinXP
There was a thread here last month (starting with a poorly-stated initial posting, and increasingly disjointed thereafter) where the OP was moaning about his SSD being slow.

Eventually, after almost 3 pages, OP had finally given enough relevant info, to warrant paying attention to all the "bickering among hobbyists".

I refer you folks to the fourth page of that thread, here:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1037621944#post1037621944

Please read that page, and feel free to respond (here) with your own relevant, and competent, (documented) counterexamples.

Thank you. (I'd love to be wrong on this one; but, you have to be convincing. OK?)

-- UhClem
 
I use an Intel 510 on Win7 at home and a Crucial C300 on XP at work, no major differences in day to day use. My experience has been that more than the OS or particular SSD drive is the ability of the motherboard to run a SSD in AHCI mode.

However, I would still rather work on an SSD without AHCI than a HDD.
 
UhClem said:
Re: SSDs on WinXP
Click to expand...

the difference in that thread was due to the intel drivers on xp

in this case, he's using an amd board I believe. no ich10r differences to worry about there.

on windows xp myself, I can pull off ridiculous raid numbers using ich10r AND megaraid drivers, and there's no room for improvement if I moved to windows 7 from them

here's an m4 and 4x force gt drives on a megaraid controller, windows xp

m4vsforcegt.png


here's an m4 on sata 2 ports for ich10r on windows xp

m4sata2.png


using the same hardware, you would see no gains on windows 7 for what I just posted
 
What motherboard do you have?

I ask because it might be SATA 1.0 on a PCI bus, which would greatly lower the performance. Even if it is though, it might be worth the cost up front if you decide to upgrade in the near future.
 
adi said:
What motherboard do you have?

I ask because it might be SATA 1.0 on a PCI bus, which would greatly lower the performance. Even if it is though, it might be worth the cost up front if you decide to upgrade in the near future.
Click to expand...

DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D (Really old MB).

I think my system is just too old really.
 
It does have SATA II, which is better than I expected from and older machine.

Personally since I moved my ultra low powered laptop from mechanical to SSD, I would still say there will be a noticeable difference even on your system. It might not be optimal, but even slightly crippled SSD will make a difference.

Looking ahead, if you ever do decide to upgrade the entire system, you won't have to feel bad tossing in an old 250GB boot hard drive into your shiny new system.

I have 15k and 10k drives, but IMO they aren't worth the cost if you are only using one.
 
The OP could get one of those Seagate hybrid drives and wouldn't have to worry about drivers or controllers. It would be significantly faster than his current in day to day, but wouldn't show up on bench marks.
 
First, a reply to the various naysayers:
Note that I had posted:
SSDs on XP can be a major disappointment.
Click to expand...
I didn't say ... will be ... or ... are ... . Words have meaning.

Now, on to the sensible response:

gjs278 said:
the difference in that thread was due to the intel drivers on xp
Click to expand...
Exactly. And that is the whole point. It's the driver that decides your fate. There is nothing inherently detrimental about the WinXP *kernel* regarding the basic performance of an SSD. A good driver on XP will outshine a poor driver on Win7.

Unfortunately for the OP in that thread, he was unable to find a good (ie, suitable for his Vertex3 SSD) XP driver for the P67's SATA.
gjs278 said:
in this case, he's using an amd board I believe. no ich10r differences to worry about there.
Click to expand...
(With an Opteron CPU, it better be an AMD board; confirmed by OP's follow-up.)
And, maybe even more pertinent to the XP/SSD discussion, is that the OP here, and my experience (related in the other thread), involve WinXP-vintage hardware; possibly, also, that we both have NForce4-based mobos.

My initial comment to the OP (here) might be paraphrased:
"Look before you leap. (There are a couple of sharp rocks below the surface.)" If he wants to pursue this further, he should focus his attention on others' experience with:
NForce Ultra4 <and> WinXP <and> SSD
This one ain't Plug-n-Play.

gjs278 said:
...
here's an m4 on sata 2 ports for ich10r on windows xp
[pic above]
Click to expand...
Nothing wrong there; the SeqRead (270M/s) is almost certainly capped by the SATA2 (vs 517M/s on your add-in card's SATA3). Otherwise, the ICH10R seems a little better.

-- UhClem
 
$99 64gb M4
+ WD Black For storage

If you need more space, then obviously the SSD cost more :p
 
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