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Small, FAST Primary Drive

E

erorr404

Gawd
Joined
Jan 30, 2005
Messages
646
Right now I have a 160GB Maxtor and I want to make that my storage drive. I have a bunch of various files that take up most of the space and I don't want to loose them when I have to reformat.

So I am looking for a new (primary) hard drive that is under $100. It should have at least 40GB capacity and should be as fast as possible, as I'll be using this for gaming and video recording.

I haven't looked into hard drives for a long time, so I don't know what's the newest and best anymore. I'm not looking for a Raptor or some fast SCSI drive, but a normal one with the best performance possible. I also want it to be futureproof (or I want to feel like it's futureproof ;)), so it would preferably be SATA3 (or the newest format, if that's not it).

Thanks.

PS: any hard drive will be compatible with my MSI 865PE Neo2-PLS since they're backswards compatible, right?

edit: I don't care about noise, all I care about is performance.
 
Under $100 and 40 gig or greater with best performance...No such beast that I can think. You can get close to performance level of the raptor maybe for that price range. I highly doubt it though. Speed comes at the cost of price.
 
The 36GB Raptor almost fits your requirements.....104.50 at the egg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144200

But it isn't as fast as the 74GB Raptor @ 163.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144160

The 16Meg cache drives would be the next choice after the 74GB raptor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...axPrice=110.00&SubCategory=14&Submit=Property
Prices range from $81.76 for the 200GB to $102.26 for the 250GB MaxLine III

And the 300GB drives are faster and larger for a little more cash.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822140166 - $115.00

And the current king of the hill @ $380.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822147007

The 250GB MaXLine is the best bang for the buck.


 
Thanks for the advice. Should I go with 16mb cache SATA 150 or 8mb cache SATA 3.0GB/s?
 
erorr404 said:
Thanks for the advice. Should I go with 16mb cache SATA 150 or 8mb cache SATA 3.0GB/s?
Click to expand...

16mb cache SATA 150.
SATA 3.0Gb/s isn't supported by most motherboards, and even if it is, you'd need to be simultaniously reading and writing to 3 or more SATA hard drives to notice any difference.
 
TeeJayHoward said:
16mb cache SATA 150.
SATA 3.0Gb/s isn't supported by most motherboards, and even if it is, you'd need to be simultaniously reading and writing to 3 or more SATA hard drives to notice any difference.
Click to expand...

As much as I hate maxtor, the 16MB is, indeed, the better choice.
 
why are the maxtors so damn cheap? a quick search for 16mb cache drives on pricegrabber reveals that 200GB maxtor drives are as cheap as 80GB drives from other companies. anything wrong with the maxtors (except the poor drive failure record)?

edit: also, what is NCQ and should i look into getting that?
 
erorr404 said:
why are the maxtors so damn cheap? a quick search for 16mb cache drives on pricegrabber reveals that 200GB maxtor drives are as cheap as 80GB drives from other companies. anything wrong with the maxtors (except the poor drive failure record)?

edit: also, what is NCQ and should i look into getting that?
Click to expand...

Maxtors these days don't seem to have the reliability issues they used to. Some people still have bad luck, though. As for NCQ? Don't bother. If you get a drive with it, the drive will be faster with it turned off anyway. Check StorageReview.com for more info.
 
So it looks like all the good drives these days are big? When will we see a 16mb cache HDD > 100GB?
 
Bigger = faster. Higher density increases transfer rates, one of the facets of storage performance. Also, bigger drives deliver better localized seek performance, as seeks are make over a shorter area of the disk on a larger drive. 4GB of data (UT2004, etc) is 10% of a 40GB drive, but only 1% of a 400GB drive.

In short, making drives bigger is by far the most cost effective way to increase performance of 7200RPM drives. Adding a bigger buffer helps too.
 
One thing about the maxtors - they run hot - ensure you have adequate cooling (I have known a couple to die on me lately) - admittedly IDE not SATA
 
Now I'm having second thoughts about the Maxtor.

Someone told me the new Seagate 7200.9's (8mb cache, but with NCQ) would be a better choice than the 16mb cache Maxtor DiamondMax 10's.

What are the advantages of each (in terms of performance)?
 
Seagate drives are a crapshoot performance wise nowadays, and the geometry of their units is kind of mysterious

Clicky

That shows the 500GB 7200.9 delivering pretty solid performance, knocking off the 16MB Maxtor drivers performance wise, and pretty much battling to a draw with the WD2500KS, although the WD2500KS has a substantial lead in the Office DriveMark. However, that data is only representative of the 500GB model, which features 4 125GB platters. For some bizarre reason, Seagate did not opt to use their new 160GB platters (only three of these are needed to achieve 500GB) which leads me to believe that are some servo positioning issues on platters of that density. I'd hate to think that Seagate would change the geometry of their flagship drive (that gets sent out for reviews) just for the sake of propping up performance, but after some of the other stuff we've seen from Seagate lately, I wouldn't be suprised.
 
I get the distinct impression that maybe our DougLite doesn't like Seagate too much... :p
 
Seagate has a long history of deciding that they know what's best for their customers. The 7200.7 AAM locking (on for PATA drives, off for SATA drives), the seek claim debacle on the 7200.8 ("8ms average" - Hahahahaha...try 11ms!) and now the lackluster performance of their new 500GB flagship that was supposed to blow everyone out of the water all add up to me taking any statement from Seagate with a whole shaker of salt. When it rains, it pours.

I still think they make great drives, and they are the gold standard for mechanical hard disk reliability. Unfortuantely, they haven't been as reliable/consistent in their marketing.
 
DougLite said:
Seagate drives are a crapshoot performance wise nowadays, and the geometry of their units is kind of mysterious

Clicky

That shows the 500GB 7200.9 delivering pretty solid performance, knocking off the 16MB Maxtor drivers performance wise, and pretty much battling to a draw with the WD2500KS, although the WD2500KS has a substantial lead in the Office DriveMark. However, that data is only representative of the 500GB model, which features 4 125GB platters. For some bizarre reason, Seagate did not opt to use their new 160GB platters (only three of these are needed to achieve 500GB) which leads me to believe that are some servo positioning issues on platters of that density. I'd hate to think that Seagate would change the geometry of their flagship drive (that gets sent out for reviews) just for the sake of propping up performance, but after some of the other stuff we've seen from Seagate lately, I wouldn't be suprised.
Click to expand...
So would the 160GB drive's performance be as good as the 500GB drive?

I'm just trying to figure out what the very best performing drive would be for ~$100, any more advice?
 
If the performance of the denser platters is as I say, then you will most likely see lower Office/FarCry scores, but better High-End/WoW scores. Like I said, Seagate is not a good choice for users looking for good application level performance.
 
erorr404 said:
I'm just trying to figure out what the very best performing drive would be for ~$100, any more advice?
Click to expand...

Short list:

Hitachi T7K250

WD 2500KS

Maxtor 7L250S0
 
Thanks, any problems with the 160 GB 7K250? I would go for that one if it was just as fast as the 250 GB. The platter size is 125 GB.
 
Only problem with the 160GB is that it isn't as cost effective in terms of cost per GB. If you have an absolute ceiling of $100, nothing at all wrong with it. Only other real contender for less than $100 is a Maxtor 6B200S0/6L200S0.
 
Hmm.. $0.58/GB vs $0.48/GB, but it's almost $30 cheaper.. I think I'll go with the 160 GB cause I don't think I'll need the extra space. Thanks for the help.
 
erorr404 said:
Hmm.. $0.58/GB vs $0.48/GB, but it's almost $30 cheaper.. I think I'll go with the 160 GB cause I don't think I'll need the extra space. Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...

Have fun :p
 
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