A new HDD will speed up your PC?

JTM

JTM

New Member
My brother believes that a bigger hard drive will absolutely speed up a computer. Is this true? I don't think it will speed up the PC too much, be he says it will. So what is the true answer. Say if you went from 40 gig-150 gig would the change be amazing? and in what areas?
Thanks
 
It might speed up load times and what not... Depending on the old drive it might really make a difference. However, it wouldn't increase gamming performace or anything of that nature.
 
well, it will certainly make a difference, but not the biggest. RAM is more a solution for SPeed. Also, the more free space you have on your Hdd, the better (get ride of of some junks! lol)
 
I guess if you install Windows on that new drive, then yes, because you're effectively doing a full re-format, but without losing any of your data.
 
What do you mean will not increase gaming?! I used to have to OC my CPU in order to play FEAR! Now I got a 3GB/s HDD and I get the same results with a new HDD as when I used to OC my CPU! I don't have to do that anymore! Of course if you get the right HDD it will improve gaming!!!
 
Bigger is not always faster. A small fast hdd will be quicker than a large slow hdd (I'm pretty sharp). I'm not even sure that if you take two drives of the same type that size really matters if both are kept well-defragged and with a decent amount of spare space.

As ChrisDVD said, RAM is the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to improving speed in an existing setup.

Starman*
 
I think the main point that hasn't been clarified is whether JTM's old HDD was an IDE or SATA. The question does imply that only size is the factor. But I think that the Interface would make such an incredible difference, that it would overshadow any performance increase that was gained by having more free space, or a nicely defragged HDD.
 
It will only make a difference if your current HD is running out of space and/or has a lower PF size. A larger HD will most likely also raise the PF (Page File (Virtual Memory)), and may increase performance slightly. But what will also increase performance with a newer drive is if it has a larger cache (16MB vs 8MB for example), faster, (7200RPM vs 5200RPM) or a faster interface (SATAII vs ATA100).
 
ADE said:
What do you mean will not increase gaming?! I used to have to OC my CPU in order to play FEAR! Now I got a 3GB/s HDD and I get the same results with a new HDD as when I used to OC my CPU! I don't have to do that anymore! Of course if you get the right HDD it will improve gaming!!!
Click to expand...



yeah the right one

like a 10K or 15K HDD


and your "new 3GBs HDD" was probably faster RPMs than your older one.


no technology out there lets you take use of the 3GBs transfer rate
 
Part of this is that a larger hard drive is almost inevitably going to be newer, therefore it is going to have more optimizing features allowing for lower response times/latencies. Smart QUERY systems and such, while the older drive didn't have these optimizing factors. So its not the size, just the age.
 
In my sig, I show I have a 20GB Maxtor as master, and an 80GB WD as slave. I just did this last week; the week before they were swapped. Both are IDE ATA-100 5400rpm drives with 2MB caches that Windows says are stuck at ATA-66. The Maxtor is a DX541 from 2001, the WD a Protege from 2003. HDTach reports the Maxtor's max I/O is around 35MB/sec, and the WD is around 50MB/sec. Trying VIA's IDE Accelerator drivers had no effect or improvement. :(
The Maxtor is indeed slower than the WD... and it shows in regular use.
Tom
 
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Saurian said:
Part of this is that a larger hard drive is almost inevitably going to be newer, therefore it is going to have more optimizing features allowing for lower response times/latencies. Smart QUERY systems and such, while the older drive didn't have these optimizing factors. So its not the size, just the age.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily true. My friend has a 37GB hard drive and that thing is blazing fast, while he also has a 300GB hdd and that thing is pretty damn slow. Theres a lot more involved then just size and RPM.
 
How can I find out the specs on my HDD. It's a dell so it's most likely nothing special. But is there a way I can tell what type of HDD it is?
 
If it is a Dell it is most likely Western Digital... And if it is Western Digital you would get more performance out of it if you turned the platters by hand.

You aren't going to get much more performance going from a small drive to a big drive. I have a 74GB HDD that will completely smoke anything in this thread.

The difference between SATA and PATA is minimal. You see the difference in some benchmarks, but never in real world performance.

Cache size doesn't make a difference if you are only transferring a bunch of small files. It's a selling feature, and pretty much a bogus one. If you have an 8MB Cache or a 16MB Cache, and both are 7200 RPM, they will perform pretty much equally unless you are a Sisoft whore or something. hehe. It does help if you are transferring massive files that are stored sequentially on the drive, but that's about it.
 
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