Have hard drives improved over the years?

[FearoftheNight]

I got a 320 gig seagate 7200 rpm from around 5 years ago. Will a modern 500 gig to 1 tb drive be noticeably faster?

 

[mnewsham]

yes.

 

[FearoftheNight]

how much? and reason? aren't they both 7200 rpm

 

[mnewsham]

the platter density, and a fair amount, especially if you get Western digital blacks or Samsung spinpoint F3's

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I got a 320 gig seagate 7200 rpm from around 5 years ago. Will a modern 500 gig to 1 tb drive be noticeably faster?

I imagine a Barracuda 7200.10, right?

Those have average 65MB/s sequential read/write speeds and 14ms access times.

A modern 500GB/platter Hard Drive like the Samsung Spinpoint F3 offers 125MB/s sequential read speeds and 100MB/s sequential write speeds and 13ms access times.

In short: almost 2x faster sequential transfer speeds, and a bit more responsive due to lower access times. It will be a lot faster.

 

[FearoftheNight]

that's dead on. thanks!

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

that's dead on. thanks!

No prob.

 

[Blain]

Have hard drives improved over the years?

I got a 320 gig seagate 7200 rpm from around 5 years ago. Will a modern 500 gig to 1 tb drive be noticeably faster?

1. Yes, in some ways they have improved... Platter density (perpendicular recording), leading to faster performance.
2. No, they have devolved... Platter density (perpendicular recording), leading to more frequent failure.
Margins of error tighter meaning higher chance for failure.

3. Whether the difference is "noticeable" depends on a few issues...
* How the HD is used, do the specific apps used improve significantly with higher performing HD.
* The condition of your current HD. You won't be comparing two brand new HDs. Yours is five years old and carries the baggage of a five year old drive, like bad sectors, wore bearings, etc.
* You mentioned 500GB-1TB. There are a whole range of platter densities in that group.
Please be more specific about which model you're considering.

 

[RaistlinZ]

It will be noticeably faster. Here are my HDD scores from my rig. Both are 7200rpm drives:

1.) 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 (1 year old)
Min: 63.5
Avg: 113.8
Max: 139.7

2.) 250GB Seagate Barracuda (6 years old)
Min: 34.3
Avg: 55.1
Max: 68.0

 

[Blain]

It will be noticeably faster. Here are my HDD scores from my rig. Both are 7200rpm drives:

1.) 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 (1 year old)
Min: 63.5
Avg: 113.8
Max: 139.7

2.) 250GB Seagate Barracuda (6 years old)
Min: 34.3
Avg: 55.1
Max: 68.0

What are the randon access times for the two drives?

 

[dclive]

Newer is generally better. They're both still so much slower than an SSD, though, for normal day-to-day use that it's kinda silly to compare the two. If you want an OS/boot volume and you care about speed, get an SSD. If you just want raw storage for video files, etc., get a random hard drive.

I'd focus on reliability rather than speed for the hard drive, because either will seem
incredibly slow for most things compared to the SSD.

 

[Kristijonas]

I had a 6 years old samsung 40gb disk and used it for everything. Now I have 1tb samsung F3. The difference is meager. Slightly faster install times, 2x faster game loading and windows loading. I had hoped that in 6 years hard disks would have advanced more. Well, it's the same technology, so don't expect miracles. Perhaps in another 5 years a different storage method will be in place with atleast 10x faster load times. I truly believe that will happen.

 

[dclive]

I had a 6 years old samsung 40gb disk and used it for everything. Now I have 1tb samsung F3. The difference is meager. Slightly faster install times, 2x faster game loading and windows loading. I had hoped that in 6 years hard disks would have advanced more. Well, it's the same technology, so don't expect miracles. Perhaps in another 5 years a different storage method will be in place with atleast 10x faster load times. I truly believe that will happen.

It's already here - it's called an SSD. Rather than focusing on hard drives, I suggest OP look into SSDs.

 

[Zap]

I had a 6 years old samsung 40gb disk and used it for everything. Now I have 1tb samsung F3. The difference is meager. Slightly faster install times, 2x faster game loading and windows loading. I had hoped that in 6 years hard disks would have advanced more. Well, it's the same technology, so don't expect miracles. Perhaps in another 5 years a different storage method will be in place with atleast 10x faster load times. I truly believe that will happen.

Load times are not always linear in direct relation to media speed.

 

[FearoftheNight]

well does anyone have any opinions on intel srt?

 

[mfenn]

Load times are not always linear in direct relation to media speed.

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

well does anyone have any opinions on intel srt?

Its fine as a technology, but since the cache is limited to 64Gb, I'd rather manually manage what goes onto the SSD vs. HDD. The best thing about having an SSD IMHO is consistent fast performance. A caching algorithm throws that right out the window.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I had a 6 years old samsung 40gb disk and used it for everything. Now I have 1tb samsung F3. The difference is meager. Slightly faster install times, 2x faster game loading and windows loading. I had hoped that in 6 years hard disks would have advanced more. Well, it's the same technology, so don't expect miracles. Perhaps in another 5 years a different storage method will be in place with atleast 10x faster load times. I truly believe that will happen.

LOL? Are you serious? A new HDD is infinitely faster than the old ones.

I have an old Hitachi Deskstar from 2005 that's 80GB. Everything is now MUCH faster, as evidenced by the fact that access time is lower and read/write speeds are almost triple. Windows loads up much faster, too, and the system is more responsive. I think you may have slightly unrealistic expectations.

Hard Drives will continue to improve in speed over time. The newest version of the Hitachi Deskstar, the 7K300, does 145MB/s average sequential reads and 105MB/s average writes. Access time is the now-usual 13ms.

Just some months ago we reached 1TB/platter density, but as of now it hasn't been implemented by any of the major manufacturers. 4TB should come this year, and should bring with it along with the usual engineering tweaks around 160MB-165MB/s average sequential reads and 110-115MB/s average writes. When you think about it, where SSDs have a huge advantage is access times, which makes them feel more responsive. In terms of speed, they're around 2x faster in reads and writes.

To me, one thing is sure though: Hard Drives aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[Marty502]

I recently went from a old 500 GB Blue Caviar to a new 1TB Black Caviar and noticed a big difference in overall performance, with a SATA 1.5 motherboard.
No more than 2 years of difference in production between both, yet there's an evident difference.
Both have been used as boot drives and the difference is big in loading times and overall responsiveness.

Something's very, very wrong with your rig if you can't tell any difference speed-wise between an obsolete 40 GB HD from a 1 TB F1.

 

[Blain]

Something's very, very wrong with your rig if you can't tell any difference speed-wise between an obsolete 40 GB HD from a 1 TB F1.

Please re-read his post, that's not what he said.

 

[dclive]

To me, one thing is sure though: Hard Drives aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Define "anytime soon"; as far as I'm concerned for general storage of OS/apps/consumer data (not video, digital data), it's already just a year or two from death's door.

The SSD has so many advantages over old spinny disks; rather than focusing on straight MB/s (new disks are 145MB/s, I see you say), I think you should focus on IOPS, as this is a more typical consumer situation. Rather than doing single linear copies (reads or writes) of data, most consumers have multiple things happening at once on the disks, and this is where the old hard drives just get crucified compared to SSDs.

 

[dclive]

I recently went from a old 500 GB Blue Caviar to a new 1TB Black Caviar and noticed a big difference in overall performance, with a SATA 1.5 motherboard.
No more than 2 years of difference in production between both, yet there's an evident difference.
Both have been used as boot drives and the difference is big in loading times and overall responsiveness.

Something's very, very wrong with your rig if you can't tell any difference speed-wise between an obsolete 40 GB HD from a 1 TB F1.

Defrag/optimize/do a new Win7 install on the prior disk for a more fair comparison to the new disk.

Better yet, grab an SSD and compare.

 

[Marty502]

Please re-read his post, that's not what he said.

Re-read it. You're right. He described overall a moderate increase in performance.
Which I still think it's odd to be honest.

In this rig I used to have a 40 GB IDE HD too. Then I had a 320 GB Seagate 7200-9, which died. Then my 500 GB Blue Caviar. And now my 1 TB Black Caviar.
Every single time the difference has been big, particularly between the 40 GB and the 320 GB discs, that one was just massive.

I'm sure if I went back and compared the 40 GB performance with my Black Caviar, it's wouldn't feel 'just a bit faster, 2x faster here and there' and more like going from a Yugo GV into a Koenigsegg Agera. AT LEAST 5 times faster. So that's what puzzles me.

Oh and...

Defrag/optimize/do a new Win7 install on the prior disk for a more fair comparison to the new disk.

It's my backup drive, so it would be a bit of a hassle.
But in performance the Black's around 25-30% faster in benchmarks.
Should be more, but I'm hitting the SATA 1.5 roof.

And it translates quite linearly into a faster Win 7 boot time, and overall it feels a lot more snappy and sharp.
With an ancient 939 dual core.

 

[dclive]

All the comparisons pale compared to moving to an SSD.

 

[Marty502]

All the comparisons pale compared to moving to an SSD.

Indeed.

 

[corkyg]

I consider SSDs to be another evolution of the Hard Drive (Not necessarily DISK.) In that light, I see great strides - especially in Hard Disk Drives for laptops (2.5-inchers). Even the spindles are better - bigger and faster than they were two years ago. I'm on the verge of SSDing it in my T510. Just not sure what I will do with all the extra time on my hands. <LOL>