Looking for new Harddrive. Single drive setup and good for gaming

[scheibler1]

Currently I am using an 80gb IDE Western Digital 8mb cache 7200rpm drive that is years old. You can see the rest of my copmuter specs in my signiture.

I am looking for a new harddrive (SATA) that has a lot more storage for music, games, and programs. I primarily game, so I want something faster then my current hdd if possible. I have heard that the 500gb hdd's are fast...even as fast as a raptor?!?!?

I will probly just fully partition the drive and put everything on it...OS, programs, files, etc since that is all I have ever done unless it is easy and htere is a big benefit for gaming

I am kinda partial to Western Digital since they have never failed me. I may consider Seagate, but definately not Maxtor or Samsung
thanks

 

[n7]

Fastest drives out now are using the 333 GB platters.

IOW the new WD 320 GB, new Samsung 320 GB, or the 640 GB from either of those two, or the Samsung F1 1 TB.

For pure seek times performance, which will make things feel slightly snappier, then Raptors still win.

But then you'll need a secondary drive as well.

 

[scheibler1]

So what would you recommend for gaming?

Get a Raptor 74gb hdd for OS and Games. Then use my current 80gb 8mb cache IDE drive as storage?

Or

Just get a 320gb hdd and use it for everything on one partition?

I only want to upgrade if I will see a difference otheriwse I'll just buy a cheap 160gb drive

 

[hclarkjr]

here is good review site for hard drives. i would get as big and fast of a drive as you can afford and partition it with 1 partition for the OS and the other for storage.

 

[scheibler1]

in that case, the wd 640gb hdd looks promising

 

[sutahz]

The 320GB single platter WD doesnt perform as well as the 2 platter 640GB because they tuned the 320 to be quiet(er) at the cost of performance (because 320GB is the new standard for off the shelf computers, and most users want their PC quiet). With the 640 performance was of greater importance.

How is just one big partition good for gameing?
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prob[ab]ly just fully partition the drive and put everything on it...OS, programs, files, etc since that is all I have ever done unless it is easy and htere is a big benefit for gaming

Guess i misread what you typed, you didnt say it was better. Partitioning is great for defragging. People say organization, which I say too, but folders do the same thing. Partitioning is simple, you're OS doesn't care. So maybe not a benefit for gaming, but not a loss either. You can uninstall a game w/o fragging up your OS partition.

 

[scheibler1]

I never said it was. That is just all I have ever done...I've never partitined a drive into two or more partitions. I dunno how I would save and use stuff on seperate partitions with one operating system