Hard Drive Specs

[Minimite11]

Ok, i am building a new sytem, and i am having hard drive trouble...now i know that the hard drive is the BIGGEST limiting factor in a computer, so here is what i am confused about...

They have 10,000 rpm hard drives, but they are only SATA 150, and then there are 7,200 rpm hard drives, but that are SATA II...now which is better to have? I'm just not understanding how the revs per min and the connection speed will effect the performance of my rig...

 

[raghavhi]

personally i suggest u to go for hdd with 10k rpm with SATA 150..

 

[Promethply]

SATAII only means that the 7200rpm drives SATA connector has a more secure latching to the SATA cable plug.

The SATA controller's bandwidth (150) is still way beyond the reach of any current SATA drives on the market.

The 10,000rpm helps in reducing that harddrive's seektimes, so that it'll bootup your system much more quickly,

load applications and games faster -- you can actually feel that it's faster than 7,200rpm harddrives.

 

[Algere]

7,200 RPM hard drives if based on price/performance ratio. However the fastest drives if you disregard price would be the 10K RPM ones. To understand it, there's drive speed/performance which as you know is 7,200 & 10K RPM (aerial density, cache, etc. also play a part) and then there's interface transfer speed which are currently at 150 & 300 MB/s (FYI: SATA II is the name of the group who worked on SATA, not a technology).

Today the fastest SATA drives peak @ around 70 MB/s, which is at least half the speed of SATA 150. So really there's no need for SATA @ 300 MB/s yet. The probable reason you'll find 7,200 RPM hard drives with a SATA transfer rate of 300 MB/s is due to the fact that those drives are newer & can support a faster transfer rate, not because they can take advantage of that faster transfer rate. Also SATA II or SATA 300 sounds much more impressive than regular ol' SATA 150 so I suppose there's a marketing thing going on there as well.

When companies tout "SATA II", it may also mean that the drive has other technologies e.g. Native Command Queuing, hot swap, staggered spin-up, etc.

 

[Malak]

Actually the fastest drives would be 15k SCSI drives, but I think it's the extreme route. Most go with large capacity 7200 RPM drives simply because it's cheaper for more storage. But if storage isn't an issue with you, like it wasn't for me, then going for say a 74GB Raptor will be the route you want. 74GB is more than enough for me, still half empty, and it's faster than all 7200 RPM drives.

 

[Algere]

Originally posted by: malak
Actually the fastest drives would be 15k SCSI drives, but I think it's the extreme route.

I meant hard drives that utilize SATA technology (unless 15K SATA hard drives exist) & a solid state hard drive would crush a 15K SCSI drive.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Algere

Originally posted by: malak
Actually the fastest drives would be 15k SCSI drives, but I think it's the extreme route.

I meant hard drives that utilize SATA technology (unless 15K SATA hard drives exist) & a solid state hard drive would crush a 15K SCSI drive.

Even bringing up SSD is pointless, nobody here is going to use it.

 

[Algere]

Originally posted by: malak

Originally posted by: Algere

Originally posted by: malak
Actually the fastest drives would be 15k SCSI drives, but I think it's the extreme route.

I meant hard drives that utilize SATA technology (unless 15K SATA hard drives exist) & a solid state hard drive would crush a 15K SCSI drive.

Even bringing up SSD is pointless, nobody here is going to use it.

How is bringing that up pointless? AFAIK you wanted to highlight the fastest drives, since when was someone on ATF needing to have it [let alone use it] a criteria & how would you know who here has/uses a solid state hard drive & who doesn't?

I suppose $655.55 is out of reach for every one here, huh.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Algere

Originally posted by: malak

Originally posted by: Algere

Originally posted by: malak
Actually the fastest drives would be 15k SCSI drives, but I think it's the extreme route.

I meant hard drives that utilize SATA technology (unless 15K SATA hard drives exist) & a solid state hard drive would crush a 15K SCSI drive.

Even bringing up SSD is pointless, nobody here is going to use it.

How is bringing that up pointless? AFAIK you wanted to highlight the fastest drives, since when was someone on ATF needing to have it [let alone use it] a criteria & how would you know who here has/uses a solid state hard drive & who doesn't?

I suppose $655.55 is out of reach for every one here, huh.

Some people here actually do use SCSI drives. I am willing to bet nobody uses SSD. $700 for 3GB? What are you going to install on that, windows? I'm willing to say nobody here is that stupid with their money. I only hope nobody proves me wrong.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: Algere

Originally posted by: malak

Originally posted by: Algere

Originally posted by: malak
Actually the fastest drives would be 15k SCSI drives, but I think it's the extreme route.

I meant hard drives that utilize SATA technology (unless 15K SATA hard drives exist) & a solid state hard drive would crush a 15K SCSI drive.

Even bringing up SSD is pointless, nobody here is going to use it.

How is bringing that up pointless? AFAIK you wanted to highlight the fastest drives, since when was someone on ATF needing to have it [let alone use it] a criteria & how would you know who here has/uses a solid state hard drive & who doesn't?

I suppose $655.55 is out of reach for every one here, huh.

It is for anyone with brains. 3GB? You can even have a usable WinXP partition that small. What are you going to put on that? One game? Have you actuall looked at the specs for that drive?

Average access time - 1.25ms
Sustained Read - Up to 5 MB/sec
Sustained Write - Up to 5 MB/sec

Those are not great performance numbers (ms access time for a SSD drive is terrible), especially the STR numbers which are awful. A Raptor would be a much faster every day drive than one of those for less than a quarter of the cost and 25 times more capacity. If you want the performance drives that people typically think about when the term SSD is mentioned, you have to go DRAM based which are significantly more expensive.

 

[Algere]

Originally posted by: KruptosAngelos

Originally posted by: Algere

Originally posted by: malak

Originally posted by: Algere

Originally posted by: malak
Actually the fastest drives would be 15k SCSI drives, but I think it's the extreme route.

I meant hard drives that utilize SATA technology (unless 15K SATA hard drives exist) & a solid state hard drive would crush a 15K SCSI drive.

Even bringing up SSD is pointless, nobody here is going to use it.

How is bringing that up pointless? AFAIK you wanted to highlight the fastest drives, since when was someone on ATF needing to have it [let alone use it] a criteria & how would you know who here has/uses a solid state hard drive & who doesn't?

I suppose $655.55 is out of reach for every one here, huh.

Some people here actually do use SCSI drives. I am willing to bet nobody uses SSD. $700 for 3GB? What are you going to install on that, windows? I'm willing to say nobody here is that stupid with their money. I only hope nobody proves me wrong.

Unless he speaks BS, Ribbon13 uses a pair of solid state hard drives.

Originally posted by: Pariah

Originally posted by: Algere

Originally posted by: malak

Originally posted by: Algere

Originally posted by: malak
Actually the fastest drives would be 15k SCSI drives, but I think it's the extreme route.

I meant hard drives that utilize SATA technology (unless 15K SATA hard drives exist) & a solid state hard drive would crush a 15K SCSI drive.

Even bringing up SSD is pointless, nobody here is going to use it.

How is bringing that up pointless? AFAIK you wanted to highlight the fastest drives, since when was someone on ATF needing to have it [let alone use it] a criteria & how would you know who here has/uses a solid state hard drive & who doesn't?

I suppose $655.55 is out of reach for every one here, huh.

It is for anyone with brains. 3GB? You can even have a usable WinXP partition that small. What are you going to put on that? One game? Have you actuall looked at the specs for that drive?

Average access time - 1.25ms
Sustained Read - Up to 5 MB/sec
Sustained Write - Up to 5 MB/sec

Those are not great performance numbers (ms access time for a SSD drive is terrible), especially the STR numbers which are awful. A Raptor would be a much faster every day drive than one of those for less than a quarter of the cost and 25 times more capacity. If you want the performance drives that people typically think about when the term SSD is mentioned, you have to go DRAM based which are significantly more expensive.

Thx for pointing that out :thumbsup:. Yea I didn't see the specs & thought it was a bit more faster than 5MB/sec. However do explain further how 1.25 ms is terrible when the average access time for a SCSI drive is in the 3-4 ms range (not accounting for latency).

EDIT: N/M initially thought you were comparing 1.25 ms to SCSI/SATA Raptor & not this solid state hard drive to other solid state hard drives.

 

[Handsome Prince]

Can anyone provide some real-life perfomance differences between 7200 RPM hard drives and 10,000 RPM hard drives (such as the Western Digital Raptor)? I see there are claims here that the system will boot and load initial startup programs more quickly with a 10,000 RPM hard drive, and that applications and games will load faster, but I was wondering just how MUCH faster?

I just ordered a high-end computer for my small business with a 250 GB SATA hard drive. A 10,000 RPM 74GB hard drive was available but I was worried that down the road I might be tight on space. Given the length of time I am in front of the computer, I like to be efficient as possible with my time and for operations to proceed as quickly as possible. I run many different applications throughout the day (with an emphasis on Internet Explorer, MS Word, MS Excel, and Mail Shield).

I know there are other variables to consider besides"spindle speed", but, all things being equal, can anyone give some examples on the difference in time required for various operations for a 7200 RPM as compared to a 10,000 RPM hard drive (same brand, size, and type) on the same system?

Some additional specs for the two drives:
Average seek time: 7200 RPM: 8.9 ms / 10,000 RPM: 4.5 ms
Average latency: 7200 RPM: 4.2 ms / 10,000 RPM: 3.0 ms

MANY thanks in advance for any info you can share,

HP

 

[Promethply]

Originally posted by: Handsome Prince
Can anyone provide some real-life perfomance differences between 7200 RPM hard drives and 10,000 RPM hard drives (such as the Western Digital Raptor)? I see there are claims here that the system will boot and load initial startup programs more quickly with a 10,000 RPM hard drive, and that applications and games will load faster, but I was wondering just how MUCH faster?

I just ordered a high-end computer for my small business with a 250 GB SATA hard drive. A 10,000 RPM 74GB hard drive was available but I was worried that down the road I might be tight on space. Given the length of time I am in front of the computer, I like to be efficient as possible with my time and for operations to proceed as quickly as possible. I run many different applications throughout the day (with an emphasis on Internet Explorer, MS Word, MS Excel, and Mail Shield).

I know there are other variables to consider besides"spindle speed", but, all things being equal, can anyone give some examples on the difference in time required for various operations for a 7200 RPM as compared to a 10,000 RPM hard drive (same brand, size, and type) on the same system?

Some additional specs for the two drives:
Average seek time: 7200 RPM: 8.9 ms / 10,000 RPM: 4.5 ms
Average latency: 7200 RPM: 4.2 ms / 10,000 RPM: 3.0 ms

MANY thanks in advance for any info you can share,

HP

Hi, welcome to AF:

Please check back to the other thread that you've created, "7200 RPM versus 10,000 RPM SATA hard drives"

 

[musgrattios]

10k any day, and 15k when they come out.