Hard drive speed, does it affect performance?
- Thread starter Stildawn
- Start date
A Cheese Danish
New Member
Meh, they do give faster load times to games and apps.
They also have faster read/write speeds on them as well.
So I guess, yes, they do give a little better performance than the 7200RPM drives.
They also have faster read/write speeds on them as well.
So I guess, yes, they do give a little better performance than the 7200RPM drives.
Bodaggit23
Active Member
Look at the cache size also.
A 7200 rpm drive with 32Mb of cache may seem just as fast as a VelociRaptor.
Windows Vista Ultimate x64 installed on my system in about 20 minutes.
Photoshop opens in under 5 seconds. Idk I love my VelociRaptor.
A 7200 rpm drive with 32Mb of cache may seem just as fast as a VelociRaptor.
Windows Vista Ultimate x64 installed on my system in about 20 minutes.
Photoshop opens in under 5 seconds. Idk I love my VelociRaptor.
2048Megabytes
Active Member
You need good airflow on 10,000 revolution per minute hard drives they create a lot of heat.
7200 is as fast as RELIABLE drives get for SATA. There are some iscsi drives that are reliable up to 15000 RPM. But the WD 10K rpm SATA drives are not considered to be reliable enough for serious work. For game playing, of course, they would be fine. I wouldn't want to trust them for network work or backup.
bomberboysk
Active Member
Well that's not good enough to make a blanket statement like 'they are unreliable.' The number you see failed is a tiny slice of how many of the drives exist.
There was a guy on this site a while back who said he owned a repair shop and that WD Caviar 7200RPM drives were the most unreliable drives yet millions of them are out there and working fine. All parts fail, it's just the way it goes you have to take age into account as well not just x number of failed drives.
There was a guy on this site a while back who said he owned a repair shop and that WD Caviar 7200RPM drives were the most unreliable drives yet millions of them are out there and working fine. All parts fail, it's just the way it goes you have to take age into account as well not just x number of failed drives.
No, personal experience is absolutely the best reason for me to make blanket statements like that. I remember back in 1996 WD hard drives were failing left and right. It got so bad we quit using them. Throughout that time nobody, including WD said they had heard anything about it. The failure rate was over 10% during the initial 30 days. That's catastrophic. My figures were from 1000's of drives literally. You can't convince me there wasn't a problem. I even had the President of WD call me and tell me basically that I was imagining things. I discontinued the brand nevertheless. Seagate has had some similar bad times over the years.
My universe of experience is small with the 10,000 rpm SATA drives but I wouldn't have brought it up if I hadn't noticed it. I recommend customers avoid the drives. It isn't anything personal. It's just way it is. I have no doubt that 10,000 rpms will become the standard in the future, probably the near future. But he future isn't here yet.
My universe of experience is small with the 10,000 rpm SATA drives but I wouldn't have brought it up if I hadn't noticed it. I recommend customers avoid the drives. It isn't anything personal. It's just way it is. I have no doubt that 10,000 rpms will become the standard in the future, probably the near future. But he future isn't here yet.
Well the 5 year warranty means WD is willing to pay for replacement drives for any drive that doesn't last 5 years. That also means that the drive should last more than 5 years because no company in their right mind would warranty a drive for longer than the expected service life of a drive . Of course there are going to be failures before that 5 year mark but that's just bad luck.
Also, the MTBF is 1.2 million hours. That doesn't mean you can expect the average drive to last 100+ years but it does mean you can expect it to last at least the 5 that it's warranties for and probably a couple more years on top of that.
Also, the MTBF is 1.2 million hours. That doesn't mean you can expect the average drive to last 100+ years but it does mean you can expect it to last at least the 5 that it's warranties for and probably a couple more years on top of that.
Mr soft
New Member
I thought they were going backwards , lots of 5200rpm " green drives " about at the moment. Good if you want that silent HTPC .
The future has to be SSD. Platters will be dead , less heat , no noise , and a massive gain in performance will secure it . The prices at the moment are hindering it from becoming Joe averages next purchase.
Agreed. I've no idea where people get off by claiming things just from personal experience. Let's say, just for argument that you had 10,000 WD drives fail over your years (yeah, I know...whatever). So, 10k drives out of a production of 1 million over the course of 10 years, just to keep things simple. .01 percent.
And Hyundai's of that era had a bad rap too - look at the company now.
Not trying to stir anything up, but I honestly just stopped reading after that.
This feels almost remotely like it's turning into a Dell-bash type thread. Anyway, several of us on here have actual computer business experience, either working for repair shops, having contractual jobs, private positions with larger companies, or owning/have owned our own businesses. What do Dell, Acer, HP, WD, Seagate, Maxtor, Asus, Gigabyte, Intel, AMD, Masscool, Kingston, CM all have in common? The answer...all have products that suddenly just stop working; deal with it and move on, repair if able, replace if necessary. It's pretty much accepted that *any* drive of *any* speed from *any* manufacturer can, has, and will again fail; you should have: A - known that, and B - and seen it on a regular, if not daily basis.
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Sorry, Jay, but there is no need to treat me like a beginner. In the Mid 90's I was one of WD's larger customers buying about 5000 drives per month - not a Compaq or Dell to be sure but a serious account nevertheless. I talked to them all time, including top management. I have no problems with WD products at all. I recommend them every day. I have installed them by the thousands and continue to do so.
But over the past 6 months I've installed roughly 60 Raptor drives and had 5 fail in the first 30 days. I agree that is a fairly small sample but it is a disaster in terms of a failure rate. Most SATA drives have a failure rate like that way, way below 1%. I understand that there were still 50 some odd drives that worked perfectly but the failure rate was bad enough that I no longer recommend the Raptors and I made that statement which none of you seem to like. But it is a fact nevertheless.
Don't confuse failure rate with MTBF. I understand that a drive that works properly will work properly for years. I'm talking about the units that do not work properly and fail early on. The rate is too high to say anything other than that the Raptors are unreliable. Sorry. That's the way it is. Don't accuse me of WD bashing. I'm just providing input to someone on a computer forum about a specific product. I'd be happy to stop doing that if it annoys you. I'm just trying to be helpful.
But over the past 6 months I've installed roughly 60 Raptor drives and had 5 fail in the first 30 days. I agree that is a fairly small sample but it is a disaster in terms of a failure rate. Most SATA drives have a failure rate like that way, way below 1%. I understand that there were still 50 some odd drives that worked perfectly but the failure rate was bad enough that I no longer recommend the Raptors and I made that statement which none of you seem to like. But it is a fact nevertheless.
Don't confuse failure rate with MTBF. I understand that a drive that works properly will work properly for years. I'm talking about the units that do not work properly and fail early on. The rate is too high to say anything other than that the Raptors are unreliable. Sorry. That's the way it is. Don't accuse me of WD bashing. I'm just providing input to someone on a computer forum about a specific product. I'd be happy to stop doing that if it annoys you. I'm just trying to be helpful.
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Bodaggit23
Active Member
You people can't stand this, can you? No, it is not an opinion. It is a fact based on personal experience. If you want to suggest my experience is a fluke that goes against the norm and that the failure rate for these drives is normal, then I'll accept that. Like I said, 60 units is a small sample. But I won't accept describing it as an opinion. It isn't an opinion. It is a clear statement of fact.
Euklid
Member
You don't have to purchase a 15,000 RPM hdd for faster load time. You can use two
hard-drives, one for windows, the other for applications. Or you can use two hdd set
up in RAID 0 - two hdd will store half the data. Because there is two moving heads
splitting the read, they work twice as fast as a single driving reading data.
I recommend you stay away from Solid State Drives for now. Some SSD are slower
than a 7200 RPM hdd. If you are going with SSD, do you research, and make sure
other people are not experiencing problems with it. I hear the OCZ Vertex SSD
might be good. Can anyone confirm this?
hard-drives, one for windows, the other for applications. Or you can use two hdd set
up in RAID 0 - two hdd will store half the data. Because there is two moving heads
splitting the read, they work twice as fast as a single driving reading data.
I recommend you stay away from Solid State Drives for now. Some SSD are slower
than a 7200 RPM hdd. If you are going with SSD, do you research, and make sure
other people are not experiencing problems with it. I hear the OCZ Vertex SSD
might be good. Can anyone confirm this?
It is your opinion that the entire line of drives are not reliable. This opinion is based on the fact that you have seen x number of failed drives. To suggest that your experience means that all the drives are unreliable and then to push it off as fact is foolish.
You're right, it does allow faster I/O times (ie loading/saving) but that's all. Don't expect faster performance accross the board. It wont do anything for your FPS.