Increasing hard drive performance?

[HollowRopes]

Hi, I have a somewhat older system I put together myself, here are the specs:

Raidmax RX-750Z
ASUS P5KC
Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0@3.6GHz
Patriot Viper II Sector 5 4GB
Galaxy Geforce GTX 460 768MB
HITACHI Deskstar T7K250 HDT722525DLA380 250GB
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

I'm noticing some slowdown when opening or dealing with larger files, at first I thought it was my RAM so I tried 8GB and it I still noticed the same thing, plus when I try the Windows performance testing thing that comes with Widows it shows that my lowest score is my hard drive, a 5.5. This is my score, actually:

Processor: 6.7
Memory (RAM): 7.1
Graphics: 7.6
Gaming Graphics: 7.6
Primary Hard Disk: 5.5

What determines hard drive 'speed' when it's broken down like this? Say I wanted to get another hard drive that performed better than this one, but didn't have to be gigantic (250GB or 500GB would do), what is it that I'm looking for in the hard drive specs that deals with the actual speed of the hard drive?

 

[Ertaz]

Hi, I have a somewhat older system I put together myself, here are the specs:

Raidmax RX-750Z
ASUS P5KC
Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0@3.6GHz
Patriot Viper II Sector 5 4GB
Galaxy Geforce GTX 460 768MB
HITACHI Deskstar T7K250 HDT722525DLA380 250GB
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

I'm noticing some slowdown when opening or dealing with larger files, at first I thought it was my RAM so I got I tried 8GB and it I still noticed the same thing, plus when I try the Windows performance testing thing that comes with Widows it shows that my lowest score is my hard drive, a 5.5. This is my score, actually:

Processor: 6.7
Memory (RAM): 7.1
Graphics: 7.6
Gaming Graphics: 7.6
Primary Hard Disk: 5.5

What determines hard drive 'speed' when it's broken down like this? Say I wanted to get another hard drive that performed better than this one, but didn't have to be gigantic (250GB or 500GB would do), what is it that I'm looking for in the hard drive specs that deals with the actual speed of the hard drive?

For mechnical drives you're looking at the speed of the interface(SATA 1, 2 or now 3), the amount of cache(8,16,32, or 64M) and the rotational speed of the drive(5400, 7200, 10000RPM or >).

The WEI score doesn't really matter a whole lot. As far as mechanical drives go I like my Samsung Spinpoint. I have been putting a few solid state drives in lately. I've never been more impressed in the performance improvement by a single PC component.

 

[HollowRopes]

I know what you mean, I never really notice any difference unless I'm building a completely new system with new equipment. I'm just noticing some general slowdown that I think I've sorta 'tested' with a friend's old 8GB of PC1066 and figured RAM wasn't the issue. I know the best thing for me to do at this point is get a new motherboard and CPU (going for SB when I do, if I'm able to soon enough) but it might be a few months away, what's the best thing for me to do at this point for performance in this area?

 

[f4phantom2500]

what's the best thing for me to do at this point for performance in this area?

get a good ssd. failing that, get a good hard drive. samsung spinpoint f3 and wd caviar black are both highly regarded and pretty cheap. there's more to hard drive performance than interface (by far least important; any given drive made recently is going to have sata 2 or better, and hard drives are nowhere near maxing out sata 2, so there is no inherent benefit in a sata 3 hard drive), cache (not terribly important; this is not something you should focus too much on), and rotational speed (this is the most important of these 3 features, but don't just get any 7200rpm drive). there are a lot of specifics of how much each factor contributes to hard drive performance, such as the areal data density of the disks themselves (all other things being equal, a drive with a 250gb platter is going to be slower than a drive with a 500gb platter because the drive can cover more data in less time; it doesn't have to move as much since each square inch of physical space contains more data), access times (lower = better, of course), the number of platters in the drive, firmware optimizations, etc and so forth...


but the long and skinny of it is that the spinpoint f3 and caviar blacks are good places to look; for a safe bet i'd just go with the f3 since there are quite a few different caviar blacks and not all of them perform as well as the others.


or an ssd.

 

[taltamir]

the windows performance testing is pure and utter trash, don't bother with it.
if you want files to open faster you need to get an SSD; f4's advice of a WD caviar black or samsung spinpoint is also valid (improvement will be smaller, but it will improve).
Interface is irrelevant for spindle HDD. there has never ever been a spindle drive that can go faster than SATA1 speeds; the only reason for SATA2 and SATA3 spindle drives existing is marketing (people will not buy it if it has a lower number).
SSDs are getting close to maxing out SATA3 though.

But its hard to tell exactly what is causing the slowdowns. Maybe its time for a CPU upgrade, maybe you should reinstall windows. I don't know exactly what the status of your system is.

 

[tweakboy]

Try running everything on stock and see if this happens again. gl

 

[aigomorla]

The WEI score doesn't really matter a whole lot. As far as mechanical drives go I like my Samsung Spinpoint. I have been putting a few solid state drives in lately. I've never been more impressed in the performance improvement by a single PC component.

actually it tells you a ballpark.

Having a low drive speed means your read speed and writes are slower.

This can have effects on:

1. Gaming... faster loadup = faster io
2. Encoding... Faster writting = less time

That being said, unless u have a dedicated controller and your on Raid 15k SAS drives, you wont get a 7 in the windows index rating on spindles.

You will need a SSD, and those of us who have 7.9's are running SSD's in raid 0.

But a single SSD should get you around a 7.2 (average speed ones) -> 7.8
Which also means a faster windows loadup time.

Things are getting pushed out faster, its going to load faster, unless god forbid his bottle neck is at the cpu end.
Which is almost unhead of... cpu being bottle neck more so then io?

 

[taltamir]

actually it tells you a ballpark.

no it doesn't.
The first number is based on features, things like SATA1 vs SATA2, DX version supported, SSD vs spindle HDD, amount of RAM, amount of HDD space, DDR2 vs DDR3, etc.
In windows vista it went from 1 to 5, in windows 7 it goes from 1 to 7, and those numbers don't mean the same. The have only ever revealed a few select items and the rest are black box.
The second number (after the period) is the result of actual performance testing (usually), and is agreed to be very poorly done.

Bottom line is that WEI is utter crap, and it is fully capable of giving a faster piece of equipment a lower score.

 

[aigomorla]

Bottom line is that WEI is utter crap, and it is fully capable of giving a faster piece of equipment a lower score.

Show me then.

WIE tells you ballpark. Never said it was exact.

It ranks your system on the lowest number, because it pulls the bottleneck in your system and says this is what its cap'd at.

Your cpu can have a 7.8 score, and i/o having a 5.8. That system will be a 5.8.

A system which averages 6.5 all around will be faster because the bottleneck is higher, and its usually because of the IO thats always the lowest number in WI, unless your using IGP video + SSD.

You know here, i'll make it easier for you, but you wont find it:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2134570

Show me where a lower number ranked system is actually faster then a higher ranked system when not looking at specific niches but overall system.
You can totally tell what the machine type is by looking at the individual numbers in WI.

 

[tweakboy]

Well SSD is mainly a faster boot up and start up of applications.
thx

 

[Ertaz]

actually it tells you a ballpark.

I think the number is vague enough that it's not significant. (no flame war, just my opinion.) Hence my original statement....

 

[aigomorla]

I think the number is vague enough that it's not significant. (no flame war, just my opinion.) Hence my original statement....

i never said it was absolutely vital.

lol i said it tells you a ballpark on what your system scales.

Its like this, if your gpu sector had a 4 as a raiting, you can fairly say its not a gaming machine vs if the gpu had a 7.9

Also, the WI of 5.9-6.5 isnt bad.
Its better then what most people have, but a machine which has a WI of 7 across one can easily say is a high end machine no?

Its good to tell you where the machine stands amongst the general.

 

[taltamir]

Show me then.

WIE tells you ballpark. Never said it was exact.

It ranks your system on the lowest number, because it pulls the bottleneck in your system and says this is what its cap'd at.

Your cpu can have a 7.8 score, and i/o having a 5.8. That system will be a 5.8.

If CPU A is getting 5.9 and CPU B is getting 6.0 then CPU A is most likely faster while CPU B has a greater feature set.
Anything that is a .9 is a case where your performance far exceeds the maximum score MS came up with in that field and your first digit is limited only by your "features". While any #.0 is a case of very low performance coupled with good features.
Furthermore, it only vague explains what each of those figures are.

A system which averages 6.5 all around will be faster because the bottleneck is higher, and its usually because of the IO thats always the lowest number in WI, unless your using IGP video + SSD.

WEI Does not average, your system's total score = your lowest score in any one field. So a system with 7.9 in everything except say GPU and 2.0 on GPU will have a total score of 2.0

Largely misleading if you don't play games...

however, http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-is-the-Windows-Experience-Index

You can use the base score to confidently buy programs and other software that are matched to your computer's base score. For example, if your computer has a base score of 3.3, then you can confidently purchase any software designed for this version of Windows that requires a computer with a base score of 3 or lower.

If used as intented this CAN be useful.
The first digit in RAM tells you a minimum size, the second is a speed calculation. I said DDR2 vs 3 but actually now that I think about it IIRC it was all size.

In video card a game asking for a min score of say, 5.5 will indicate a certain minimum DX version AND performance version. Even though it is not accurate in comparing the performance of things (aka, 6.0 vs 5.9), it can be useful if used as intended, that is buying a piece of software and knowing if you meed its minimum requirements.

I would be less critical on it if MS was more open about what the exact numbers meant.

 

[Zap]

Say I wanted to get another hard drive that performed better than this one, but didn't have to be gigantic (250GB or 500GB would do), what is it that I'm looking for in the hard drive specs that deals with the actual speed of the hard drive?

Well, a couple things:
#1 More performance generally costs more money.
#2 Larger drives generally outperform smaller drives.

#1 should make some sense. For #2, with SSDs up to a point the number of NAND channels increase with capacity, thus performance. For HDDs, larger HDDs tend to have bigger caches or use higher density platters (not always true, but sometimes).

Here is a simple to understand performance chart for you.

Performance of drives from lowest to highest, with 1=lowest and 10=highest. Performance is not linear, but relative.
1) Your old Hitachi drive
2) Newer small drive (Seagate 7200.12 250GB/500GB, Samsung F4 320GB)
3) Newer large drive (Samsung F3 1TB, WD Black 1TB+, newer gen Hitachi)
4) VelociRaptor 600GB
5) ... nothing...
6) ... nothing...
7) ... nothing...
8) old non-crap SSDs
9) Current gen SSDs
10) Next gen SSDs

 

[Denithor]

One simple thing to check before spending money: make sure your drive is operating in DMA mode and hasn't somehow switched itself into PIO mode - this will cause a huge slowdown and noticeable "lagginess" while opening files, loading programs, etc.

Barring that, buy either a faster mechanical drive (F3 and Caviar Black are great recommendations) or better yet a good SSD (Intel G2, Crucial C300, Corsair Force series).

 

[erdemali]

Although WEI scores may give you an idea which component is the bottleneck, I don't think WEI scores standardised and correlated well.

The GPU was my min score being 4.1 and HDD 5.9.
I replaced my HDD with SSD. I saw great performance boost right after.
Since WEI showing my GPU was bottleneck, I shouldn't have seen any performance increase according to WEI scores.

That concludes that WEI scores are poorly standardised.

It is always hard to compare and weigh different components using same measure of units.
Apples to apples.

That said WEI is a good idea.