• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Easy question

A

alanwest09872

Golden Member
Whats the best hard drive I can buy for my computer. I do lots of gaming. Money is not an issue. And Im willing to buy and install extra cards
 
Either a Velociroraptor or an Intel SSD. But the Intel is VERY expensive... Over 500 for 80GB, I think. I would probably go for the V-Raptor.
 
I'm only buying 1TB drives right now. Put together a build for my gf, she's getting a 1TB drive with Vista Ultimate 64. Got my file server here that's about to get 2-4 of them.
 
Best drive, money not an issue: Intel SSD if you can find one.

Great drive, money a minor issue: Velociraptor 150 or 300GB

Good drive, money an issue: WD6400AAKS or 1TB Caviar Black
 
Ok i dont see any ssd on newegg I do howerver see scsi Serial attached is that the same thing as ssd. Also Just to make sure. I always place my operating system (vista 64 bit) on the fastest drive. and everything else on my large drive. If im incorrect please tell me. I have a 4.2 out of 5 for vista rating because of this stupid hardrive.
 
Ok i read up a little bit and I can get ione for about 400 bucks. Which isnt really all that bad considering what kinda performance gain everyone is saying there having with them.

I should also thank you for turning me on to this new technology. If you didnt mention it I wouldnt know what it is.

Bare with my nubnic for a sec. What if i purchased 2 of these put them in a raid. (which i think means that the hd space is shard but im not sure) that would give me about 250 gigs. for my vista install and any extra mod I may want for vista. Then I would install all my games and software onto my 500 gig internal drive. Also i have a 250 ide. If i left that in the loop would that slow down the pc even if i didnt use it that much. Like just put pictures of the family I want stored thanks again for all your help and please bare with my spelling. Ever since I was a kid spelling is very diifficult for me but math is insanely easy
 
Ok i just wanna double check before I go and buy one. It has increadibly fast reading speed but increadilby slow write speed. So when i go to install things on it. It may take a few extra minutes but When I go to read like start windows it will be fast as fu@k

ok and what is the differnce between

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...7295%2CN82E16820227345

these 2. The larger one with faster speed is less expensive then the smaller one with slower speeds.
 
SSD overview & Intel specific review

Read that article in its entirety before you make any decisions on fast harddrives. Trust me on this, you need to know the facts before you spend the kind of money you're considering.

This review compares all the fast storage systems (SLC & MLC SSDs, Intel SSD, Velociraptor) and gives a lot of good pointers.
 
I do everything you can imagine. Many new games. (farcry2 crysis fallout3 so on so forth all advanced games that I want to max my fps). I Download, burn dvd, photoshop and anything else that may be considered advanced. I do not however want to have sex with my pc thats the only thing that crosses the line. I love my computer in a plutonic way 🙂 lol jk
 
Throw another 4GB DDR2 in there and get SuperSpeed RAMdisk Plus 9. Set up a ramdisk on the 4GB. Point your Photoshop scratch disk, Windows pagefile (virtual memory), tmp/temp folders and browser temp folder there.



What??? lol sorry didnt make any sense to me
 
Originally posted by: alanwest09872
(farcry2 crysis fallout3 so on so forth all advanced games that I want to max my fps).
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that RAID-0 in your case is going to nothing for FPS. About the only 1 way HDs can contribute to FPS is helping MINIMUM FPS during heavy I/O situations. IE, if you are running out of physical memory and your system is thrashing the HD due to page file activity, a RAID-0 array will help with a better thruput under those specific circumstances. But, it will not improve MAXIMUM FPS.

 
Ok i just wanna make sure i have this right.

---1. I can get a ACARD's New DDRII RAM Disk then buy multi sticks of ram. Ican get a max of 64 gb of memory. If I do this I can install vista 64 bit and it will make my operating system unbeatible in speed and performance.

---2. Or I can go with a ssd which I can get an approximate 128 gigs. It if faster then any other Disk drive out there and if I install my operating stystem on it. It will be very fast. IF i go with this one I wanna buythe intel x25 m or something like that

---3. Or I could do Ramdisk. But it will only give me a few gigs and it wont be enough to place an entire operating system. However I could load some programs on it and it would make those programs lightning fast.

I really like the ddr2 ram idea. The only thing I dont like is its only 64 gigs. Vista 64 bit takes up 40 gigs and they recommend an additional 15 extra on the installed hardrive. It would be close and Im sure it would run but if I ever wanted to install anything extra on it then I would have to be very picky about what I wanted on it.

The ssd seem like a great deal. The only thing I dont like about those are I guess from what they said they only have a half life of about 5 years. OR depending on how much you use it the blocks can get full and then the drive is no good.

Ramdisk isnt practical for what I wanna do with it. It seems like awesome software but Its no good for what I want.

Before I make my choice do i have all my facts straight or am i wrong on anything.

and ty all for your help it is much appreciatedc.


 
Actually, let me lay it for you. Here's how I would set it up if I had the money.

Boot disk: Intel X25M - 80GB
-Windows + general applications

Game drive: Acard 9010 - 64GB
-Games only

Ramdisk (4GB) created with software from SuperSpeed.com
-Windows Pagefile (go to Virtual Memory setup), temp/tmp folders, Photoshop scratch disk, Internet Explorer (or other browser) temporary file cache

Storage drive: 300GB Velociraptor or 1TB WD Caviar Black
-General storage + game backup

Here's how it all works and the advantages:
*Windows boots extremely fast from the Intel SSD.
*Downloads & internet pages load super fast because temp data remains in memory (ramdisk) instead of being written to a hard drive (same for Photoshop temp files, all work is done on the ramdisk in the scratch file there).
*Games run crazy fast from the Acard disk, loading/saving times will be noticeably reduced and general access times will be improved.
*You will want to install games onto the Acard drive and then back them up on the storage drive. One complete backup upon initial installation (in case of power failure) and then basically just back up your savegames as needed.

Note that you really only need to have enough memory on the Acard drive to hold your largest game. You install each game there (so the registry points to that drive) and then just move the game folder onto it to play or onto the storage drive when you want to play something else. Otherwise you're looking at an insane amount of money for memory: even with 16GB DDR2-800 kits like these it will cost you $1428 to completely fill that Acard drive.

If you had a motherboard with support for 16GB DDR2 you could bypass the Acard drive by setting up a 12GB software RAMdisk to use in combination with a Velociraptor. Install a game onto the RAMdisk and just move it onto the Raptor when not in use.

You can certainly have some fun with this project though. If you actually set this up, make sure to post back here to let us know how it works.
 
So when you say move you just mean click and drag right. Just drag them back and forth and that works. I didnt even think of that. Thats a great idea. How do you back them up on the storage drive though. Most games dont allow you to choose where you want to have the saves installed.
 
Just to clarify, none of this will help your max FPS at all. And, it won't do much for most 32bit apps. So with Photoshop for example, you are going to need CS4 64bit to get the advantages of added memory. The speedy scratch drive idea is always a good one but, it's only going to show you improvements if you are encountering situations now where you are getting low or running out of memory with your current setup using CS3 or older versions.
 
Originally posted by: Yellowbeard
Just to clarify, none of this will help your max FPS at all.
Click to expand...

Correct.

And, it won't do much for most 32bit apps.
Click to expand...

The benefits of a RAM drive have nothing to do with whether the apps are 32-bit or 64-bit. RAM is faster than hard drives, and even faster than SSD's, even if you were using a 256-bit OS and app.

So with Photoshop for example, you are going to need CS4 64bit to get the advantages of added memory. The speedy scratch drive idea is always a good one but, it's only going to show you improvements if you are encountering situations now where you are getting low or running out of memory with your current setup using CS3 or older versions.
Click to expand...

No, Photoshop uses a scratch disk no matter how much RAM you have. Well, I should say that it did with every version up through CS3. I honestly can't imagine them rewriting all of the code that would be required to change it, though, since all of the people who were aware of how much faster using RAM is, compared to a hard drive, already know about RAM drives, if they aren't using them already. As a matter of fact, it even gives you the option to have two scratch drives.:Q It's a pretty important part of how Photoshop functions.
 
Originally posted by: myocardia
Originally posted by: Yellowbeard
Just to clarify, none of this will help your max FPS at all.
Click to expand...

Correct.

And, it won't do much for most 32bit apps.
Click to expand...

The benefits of a RAM drive have nothing to do with whether the apps are 32-bit or 64-bit. RAM is faster than hard drives, and even faster than SSD's, even if you were using a 256-bit OS and app.

So with Photoshop for example, you are going to need CS4 64bit to get the advantages of added memory. The speedy scratch drive idea is always a good one but, it's only going to show you improvements if you are encountering situations now where you are getting low or running out of memory with your current setup using CS3 or older versions.
Click to expand...

No, Photoshop uses a scratch disk no matter how much RAM you have. Well, I should say that it did with every version up through CS3. I honestly can't imagine them rewriting all of the code that would be required to change it, though, since all of the people who were aware of how much faster using RAM is, compared to a hard drive, already know about RAM drives, if they aren't using them already. As a matter of fact, it even gives you the option to have two scratch drives.:Q It's a pretty important part of how Photoshop functions.
Click to expand...
Right but, if he's not running out of RAM currently, having HD I/O thruput issues, or thrashing the existing HDs, then the faster scratch disk will make a minimal improvement at best.

And, what I meant by 32bit apps is that quite a few (based on some MS tech articles) don't have the large address aware flags necessary to take advantage of PAE. Without this, as I understand it, because of the way most 32bit apps are coded, they will not use more than 2GB of RAM.


 
Max fps is important but if it doesnt help then I really dont care. As long as I have the best pc in all of springville then I dont care lol.

I went and got that ramdisk software. How do I set it up to load some things faster. LIke in IE browzer and some of my more favorite apps.
 
Originally posted by: Denithor
Actually, let me lay it for you. Here's how I would set it up if I had the money.

Boot disk: Intel X25M - 80GB
-Windows + general applications

Game drive: Acard 9010 - 64GB
-Games only

Ramdisk (4GB) created with software from SuperSpeed.com
-Windows Pagefile (go to Virtual Memory setup), temp/tmp folders, Photoshop scratch disk, Internet Explorer (or other browser) temporary file cache

Storage drive: 300GB Velociraptor or 1TB WD Caviar Black
-General storage + game backup

Here's how it all works and the advantages:
*Windows boots extremely fast from the Intel SSD.
*Downloads & internet pages load super fast because temp data remains in memory (ramdisk) instead of being written to a hard drive (same for Photoshop temp files, all work is done on the ramdisk in the scratch file there).
*Games run crazy fast from the Acard disk, loading/saving times will be noticeably reduced and general access times will be improved.
*You will want to install games onto the Acard drive and then back them up on the storage drive. One complete backup upon initial installation (in case of power failure) and then basically just back up your savegames as needed.

Note that you really only need to have enough memory on the Acard drive to hold your largest game. You install each game there (so the registry points to that drive) and then just move the game folder onto it to play or onto the storage drive when you want to play something else. Otherwise you're looking at an insane amount of money for memory: even with 16GB DDR2-800 kits like these it will cost you $1428 to completely fill that Acard drive.

If you had a motherboard with support for 16GB DDR2 you could bypass the Acard drive by setting up a 12GB software RAMdisk to use in combination with a Velociraptor. Install a game onto the RAMdisk and just move it onto the Raptor when not in use.

You can certainly have some fun with this project though. If you actually set this up, make sure to post back here to let us know how it works.
Click to expand...




Things that are wrong with this post:


Acard should be used for OS + programs. Games are the thing that benefit the LEAST and take up the MOST space. Why would you put them on the Acard is beyond me. Considering how expensive it is thou, you might as well go with a top notch SSD. Sure the read/write speed on the Acard will be a bit better, but if you wait a little longer we'll have SSDs that bottleneck sata2.

The ramdisk is a good option for page file and photoshop scratch disk, but putting your browser cache there is certainly the dumbest idea I've heard. How is it going to make your browsing faster when turning off the PC erases everything in the ramdisk? Isn't your browsing going to become as slow as your internet connection again, since you have to re-cache everything? Not very smart unless you keep your pc on 24/7.

Finally you should get either a Seagate 1.5TB, that has read/write speeds almost as good as the velociraptor, or the velociraptor itself (if you can get by with 300GB). That's where you put all your games and all your media.

That's how I would set it up. But the fact is I still run everything off my 300GB VR, and I would not spend silly amounts of money for a silly amount of fast space. Because once you experience that fast space, you will want to put everything on it and you are back to feeling sorry. When SSDs become faster and larger, be sure i'll be the first one to purchase one. Just waiting for that 256GB SSD with 300/300 read/write speeds.


Nice PC by the way OP, where did I see something like that before... *looks to his bottom left*
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top