Upgrading HDD - advice sought

D

daws0n

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
111
my current configuration it as follows -

Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM 80GB not current model about 3 years old (for O/S and downloads)

Seagate Barracuda 7,2000 500GB (general storage for for media, music etc..)

After 2 years in service my Seagate 500GB HDD is fast running out of space so I am looking for a 1TB replacement. Initially I was going to take the easy route and just clone/replace the seagate with a higher capacity Seagate drive (been a longtime maxtor/seagate user). The 7200.11 model is bricking like crazy at the moment though so I've decided to steer clear and go for a different brand. Looking at the current crop of "Eco / Green" HDDs I figured they would be ideal as my storage drive doesn't really need to be fast and would run quieter and more efficiently.

However, reading up on the new high performance 7,200 drives from WD and Samsung I am thinking perhaps it is a better plan to replace my two drives with single hard disc? It looks like the Caviar Black and Spinpoint both come very close to the aging Raptor in speed tests. I would say this would run more efficiently/cooler than a Raptor / Eco friendly drive combo, but on the other hand I like the Raptor's performance as my main O/S and the fact that it takes most of the thrashing while my important storage drive takes comparatively little access (does this improve the drives lifespan much?).

That's enough waffling from me anyways, would appreciate your thoughts on this :) Are the new generation of 7,200 really that close in performance?

Cheers,
Dawson
 
No 7200rpm drive will beat a 10,000rpm drive for access/seek times and that's what makes your Raptor snappy.

Just get a larger storage drive and save your pennys for an SSD.
 
The OP's Raptor is two generations past its prime. It still delivers top flight seek performance, but is very weak in two other crucial areas of desktop application performance - density and cache size. It's a mere 40GB/platter and has a small 8MB cache. Only a SSD can overcome such severe deficiencies. The current crop of 1TB 7200RPM 32MB cache drives from WD, Samsung, and Hitachi will deliver better performance on the desktop than a WD800GD.

http://www.storagereview.com/php/be...&devID_0=368&devID_1=361&devID_2=306&devCnt=3

The WD Caviar Black is as much as 54% faster in linear transfers and has four times the cache. In desktop access patterns, these advantages will carry the day, even against a drive with 10,000RPM spindle speed and SCSI level seek performance. With that said, this is what I'd do in the OP's situation:

I'd pickup a 1TB 7200RPM drive with 32MB of cache and then repurpose his current 500GB Barracuda to an external enclosure as a backup measure.
 
They're ya have it, both sides of the coin. :D

There's a lotta truth in what DougLite is sayin', I just personally like the snappy Raptor.

Probably why I dove into SSDs early also.

My last series I Raptor is doing OS duties in my WHS 'till death do us part. :(
 
DougLite said:
The OP's Raptor is two generations past its prime. It still delivers top flight seek performance, but is very weak in two other crucial areas of desktop application performance - density and cache size. It's a mere 40GB/platter and has a small 8MB cache. Only a SSD can overcome such severe deficiencies. The current crop of 1TB 7200RPM 32MB cache drives from WD, Samsung, and Hitachi will deliver better performance on the desktop than a WD800GD.

http://www.storagereview.com/php/be...&devID_0=368&devID_1=361&devID_2=306&devCnt=3

The WD Caviar Black is as much as 54% faster in linear transfers and has four times the cache. In desktop access patterns, these advantages will carry the day, even against a drive with 10,000RPM spindle speed and SCSI level seek performance. With that said, this is what I'd do in the OP's situation:

I'd pickup a 1TB 7200RPM drive with 32MB of cache and then repurpose his current 500GB Barracuda to an external enclosure as a backup measure.
Click to expand...
This.

I was in the same boat two weeks ago. Running a Raptor150 for OS/apps, a 500GB drive for windows profile/libraries/general storage, and a 160GB drive where I do incremental backups of critical data.

About two weeks ago, Newegg had the WD 1TB Green drives for $74. So I swapped things around. My setup is now: same Raptor150 for OS/apps, 1TB for storage(basically any and all files that need to persist through OS crash, reformat), 500GB for incremental backups, but now I can keep more backups.
 
Fuck it...

I say get a 120gb vertex for os/apps and 3 300gb velociraptors in raid 0 for storage!

Now we're talking bout a storage upgrade ;)
 
What is the point of Velociraptors for storage, especially in RAID 0 ? You know the meaning of the word i hope.

My advice would be 60GB Vertex/Summit or X25-M 80GB for the system, and good old HDD for data - for example 1TB WD1001FALS (WD 1TB Black) for data storage.
 
faugusztin said:
What is the point of Velociraptors for storage, especially in RAID 0 ? You know the meaning of the word i hope.

My advice would be 60GB Vertex/Summit or X25-M 80GB for the system, and good old HDD for data - for example 1TB WD1001FALS (WD 1TB Black) for data storage.
Click to expand...

Sarcasm isn't lost on you, huh?
 
More replies than I expected - thanks for the input guys, much appreciated.

I think I will go for the WD Caviar Black. They seem to be top of their game at the moment where as Seagate sadly seem to be in a bit of rut reputation wise... Looked at the Spinpoint F1, but problems with SATA i compatibility could prove a problem if I decided to move it over to my old MSI Neo2 N-force 2 rig (or has this been fixed now with firmware?).

Still considering "going green" so to speak with a quieter 5400RPM drive, but I figure if my Raptor does go ca-put one day i'd rather have a fast drive to fall back on then a slow one!
 
DougLite said:
The OP's Raptor is two generations past its prime. It still delivers top flight seek performance, but is very weak in two other crucial areas of desktop application performance - density and cache size. It's a mere 40GB/platter and has a small 8MB cache. Only a SSD can overcome such severe deficiencies. The current crop of 1TB 7200RPM 32MB cache drives from WD, Samsung, and Hitachi will deliver better performance on the desktop than a WD800GD.

http://www.storagereview.com/php/be...&devID_0=368&devID_1=361&devID_2=306&devCnt=3

The WD Caviar Black is as much as 54% faster in linear transfers and has four times the cache. In desktop access patterns, these advantages will carry the day, even against a drive with 10,000RPM spindle speed and SCSI level seek performance. With that said, this is what I'd do in the OP's situation:

I'd pickup a 1TB 7200RPM drive with 32MB of cache and then repurpose his current 500GB Barracuda to an external enclosure as a backup measure.
Click to expand...

Wow, surprising results there! I was considering doing the same thing myself... I like to change HDDs every two years or so, and the surplus HDD gets moved over to my old Athlon64 rig and is used for backups etc... The tower rarely gets used for anything else except the odd Linux dabble, but it will come in handy if ever my main rig goes down.
 
daws0n said:
Wow, surprising results there! I was considering doing the same thing myself... I like to change HDDs every two years or so, and the surplus HDD gets moved over to my old Athlon64 rig and is used for backups etc... The tower rarely gets used for anything else except the odd Linux dabble, but it will come in handy if ever my main rig goes down.
Click to expand...
Nothing stands still in the computer industry for long. You either move forward or get plowed under.
 
Damn right, I used to try to keep up with it all hardware/technology wise but it's pretty much a waste of brain unless you deal it or game a lot... Still I like to do my homework before I buy, but damn it all moves on so quickly!
 
but I figure if my Raptor does go ca-put one day i'd rather have a fast drive to fall back on then a slow one!
Click to expand...

If you're keeping the Raptor you can try it both ways and see what you prefer.

http://www.storagereview.com/php/be...&devID_0=368&devID_1=361&devID_2=306&devCnt=3
Click to expand...

The link only proves my point in that the older Raptors are still in contension.

The other consideration is that with a small system OS drive, it will isolate/backup and repair easier than a single 1TB drive.

Have fun!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top