Did I pick a slow hard drive?

Trio · 05-02-2009, 02:10 AM

So, since my build, I've always noticed my hard drive hasn't been as fast as I wished it would be. It's a lot faster than my older computer, but whenever I click on folders to see what's inside, it takes a second for the icons to pop up. I'd imagine I wouldn't have to wait for the icons to pop up at all. The same with the Welcome Center, it takes some time for the icons to pop up too. When I click on some folder, it pops up blank for at least a second then everything starts appearing.

I'm not sure if I just picked a slower hard drive, or maybe if this is just normal? It does happen durring start-up most of the time. Here are my hard drive specs:

Western Digital Caviar
Running Vista
500GB
16MB cache
Average seek time - 8.9ms
Average latency - 5.6ms
5400 to 7200 RPM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136149

Looked it up in my previous purchases, but it looks nothing like my current hard drive. The one I have has a cover. I was wondering, would it be a good idea to install Vista onto a faster hard drive, and use my WD Caviar as a slave to hold all my files? Or should I RAID? Thanks in advance for answering.

Tuffie · 05-02-2009, 02:28 AM

I used to have one of these, they're great drives. Mine is never really noticeably slow. Although how they can slow down to 5400 RPM sometimes is weird.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trio

The one I have has a cover. I was wondering, would it be a good idea to install Vista onto a faster hard drive, and use my WD Caviar as a slave to hold all my files? Or should I RAID? Thanks in advance for answering.

That's going to give better performance, OS, most apps, and games on a fast hard drive, while using your large one for as a mule for all other data. Best of both worlds.

A Cheese Danish · 05-02-2009, 02:42 AM

If you can, I'd suggest getting a faster drive, maybe even a Solid State drive, if you are only gonna use it for the OS.
However, it isn't a "terrible" idea to install Vista on that. But, if you got a pure 7200RPM drive, then there wouldn't be any load/shut down problems.

Trio · 05-02-2009, 02:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A Cheese Danish

If you can, I'd suggest getting a faster drive, maybe even a Solid State drive, if you are only gonna use it for the OS.
However, it isn't a "terrible" idea to install Vista on that. But, if you got a pure 7200RPM drive, then there wouldn't be any load/shut down problems.

Yea, my hard drive does take a while to load. It'll stay on a blank (black screen) for at least 7 seconds before the Vista logo pops up.

I'm not sure if my motherboard can use solid state drives? Do they use SATA too? I don't know much about them. Aren't they insanely expensive? Like around the hundreds? I have a bit of a budget for the hard drive, if I do plan to get one, since I'm already going to buy a new CPU and stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tuffie

I used to have one of these, they're great drives. Mine is never really noticeably slow. Although how they can slow down to 5400 RPM sometimes is weird.

Quote:Originally Posted by Trio
The one I have has a cover. I was wondering, would it be a good idea to install Vista onto a faster hard drive, and use my WD Caviar as a slave to hold all my files? Or should I RAID? Thanks in advance for answering.

That's going to give better performance, OS, most apps, and games on a fast hard drive, while using your large one for as a mule for all other data. Best of both worlds.

So set the Caviar as a slave and get a faster hard drive for the OS? Would I still notice a slow down when accessing files in the Caviar? What are the specs of todays faster hard drives?

Tuffie · 05-02-2009, 03:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trio

Would I still notice a slow down when accessing files in the Caviar?

Not anymore then your currently seeing, btw I forgot to ask, have you tried Defragging?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trio

So set the Caviar as a slave and get a faster hard drive for the OS? Would I still notice a slow down when accessing files in the Caviar? What are the specs of todays faster hard drives?

Man you could pick up a 15,000 RPM drive for under $200.

Heres one for example

Quote:

Fujitsu MBA3147NP 147GB 15000 RPM SCSI Ultra320 68pin 3.5" Hard Drive - OEM

* Cache: 8MB
* Average Seek Time: 3.4ms
* Average Write Time: 3.9ms
* Average Latency: 2ms

Which retails for $179.99!

You can find all the 15,000 RPM drives on newegg here

Likewise you can find all the 10,000 RPM drives on newegg here

Trio · 05-02-2009, 03:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tuffie

Not anymore then your currently seeing, btw I forgot to ask, have you tried Defragging?

Man you could pick up a 15,000 RPM drive for under $200.

Heres one for example

Which retails for $179.99!

You can find all the 15,000 RPM drives on newegg here

Likewise you can find all the 10,000 RPM drives on newegg here

Aw man, I'll have to spend an extra $200 than, lol. I was hoping I could spend at least $70. Oh well, I guess. Do I have to uninstall Vista on the Caviar and install it onto the new hard drive?

Yea, I defragged last week with Auslogics. I have it set to defrag every sunday.

A Cheese Danish · 05-02-2009, 05:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trio

I'm not sure if my motherboard can use solid state drives? Do they use SATA too? I don't know much about them. Aren't they insanely expensive? Like around the hundreds? I have a bit of a budget for the hard drive, if I do plan to get one, since I'm already going to buy a new CPU and stuff.

Yes they use SATA so you can use it. Yes they are expensive, but since you are on a budget, don't get one.

Quote:

So set the Caviar as a slave and get a faster hard drive for the OS? Would I still notice a slow down when accessing files in the Caviar? What are the specs of todays faster hard drives?

Yes set that one as slave and get another one. No, but depending on the file/folder size, it may take a little longer to open.
Hell, you could get 2 of the Caviar's and RAID them together and you got a faster array and don't have to spend more on a different drive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tuffie

Man you could pick up a 15,000 RPM drive for under $200.

No he can't. Unless his computer is going to support SCSI, which is a HUGE investment...and meant mainly for servers.

Quote:

Likewise you can find all the 10,000 RPM drives on newegg

Yes, 10K RPM drives kick ass but are a bit costly. You should have another drive set up to use as your main data drive if you use one.

Chris PCX · 05-02-2009, 01:44 PM

You should have gotten a 32MB cache with the hard drive. You should not use raid, as that will not make any noticable difference on one computer. the higher RPM hard drives also are much noisier than a 7200 RPM hard drive and can get quite annoying.

**bomberboysk** · 05-02-2009, 03:20 PM

This is a pretty fast just hard drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136320

Or an SSD thats pretty cheap:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820609331

Euklid · 05-02-2009, 05:27 PM

I would suggest to stay away from SSD until Windows 7. There are SSD that will
read/write slower than a 7200 RPM HDD. You should really do your research before
wasting a fortune on one.

What OS are you using? Slow icons - sounds like Vista... Your system might be
creating a system restore point every time it starts. Change it from once a day
to once a month.

05-02-2009, 02:10 AM	#1 (permalink)
Trio Gold Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 335	Did I pick a slow hard drive? So, since my build, I've always noticed my hard drive hasn't been as fast as I wished it would be. It's a lot faster than my older computer, but whenever I click on folders to see what's inside, it takes a second for the icons to pop up. I'd imagine I wouldn't have to wait for the icons to pop up at all. The same with the Welcome Center, it takes some time for the icons to pop up too. When I click on some folder, it pops up blank for at least a second then everything starts appearing. I'm not sure if I just picked a slower hard drive, or maybe if this is just normal? It does happen durring start-up most of the time. Here are my hard drive specs: Western Digital Caviar Running Vista 500GB 16MB cache Average seek time - 8.9ms Average latency - 5.6ms 5400 to 7200 RPM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136149 Looked it up in my previous purchases, but it looks nothing like my current hard drive. The one I have has a cover. I was wondering, would it be a good idea to install Vista onto a faster hard drive, and use my WD Caviar as a slave to hold all my files? Or should I RAID? Thanks in advance for answering. __________________ Biostar TF720 AMD Athlon 64x2 @ 3Ghz G.Skill 2 x 2Gb DDR2 800Mhz Rosewill 600wat PSU EVGA GeForce GTS 250 Western Digital Caviar 500GB Raidmax Eclipse mid tower Awesome blue cathodes Last edited by Trio; 05-02-2009 at 08:56 PM.

05-02-2009, 01:44 PM	#8 (permalink)
Chris PCX New Member Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 4	You should have gotten a 32MB cache with the hard drive. You should not use raid, as that will not make any noticable difference on one computer. the higher RPM hard drives also are much noisier than a 7200 RPM hard drive and can get quite annoying. __________________ spam- removed by mep916

05-02-2009, 03:20 PM	#9 (permalink)
bomberboysk Moderator Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Northeast Ohio, But mainly infront of computer Age: 16 Posts: 8,091	This is a pretty fast just hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136320 Or an SSD thats pretty cheap: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820609331 __________________ CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 @ 3.90Ghz Custom Water Loop \| Mobo: EVGA 790i Ultra SLI \| GPU: 9800gtx and GTS250 in SLI\| Ram: 4GB(2 x 2gb) 1333Mhz ddr3 \| Case: Xclio WTBKAdvanced \| Sound: X-fi Fatal1ty Championship, Z-5500 5.1 Surround\| HDD: 2x Raid 0 7200.11 500gb \| PSU: Zalman ZM-1000HP \|OS: Windows 7 Enterprise x64\| Dont skimp on a power supply,if it fails, it usually takes out other components alongside it. New? Dont forget to read the rules. Heatware P.M. If interested in Shin Etsu X23-7783D

05-02-2009, 05:27 PM	#10 (permalink)
Euklid Platinum Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Age: 22 Posts: 581	I would suggest to stay away from SSD until Windows 7. There are SSD that will read/write slower than a 7200 RPM HDD. You should really do your research before wasting a fortune on one. What OS are you using? Slow icons - sounds like Vista... Your system might be creating a system restore point every time it starts. Change it from once a day to once a month. __________________ Web Developer Buying a domain? Dynadot.com; better value than GoDaddy. Reliable hosting? 247-host.com; 24/7 support, GREAT prices.

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05-02-2009, 02:42 AM	#3 (permalink)
A Cheese Danish Gold Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: At your local vending machine Posts: 318	If you can, I'd suggest getting a faster drive, maybe even a Solid State drive, if you are only gonna use it for the OS. However, it isn't a "terrible" idea to install Vista on that. But, if you got a pure 7200RPM drive, then there wouldn't be any load/shut down problems.

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