Mechanical HD cache and platter density

[jaydee]

HD Cache

I'm not really up to date on the latest hard drive technology (other than SSD's). Please do not try to convince me to get an SSD, I'm well aware what they are capable of and what they cost. I'm wondering if someone could tell me what kind of a difference in performance I can expect moving from a system that has as a primary disk Maxtor DiamondMax 8S 40GB 7200 RPM 2MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s to a WD 640GB 7200RPM 32MB cache SATA 3.0 Gb/s Black Edition

The system is a P4 3.0 w/HT, 2GB of RAM, WinXP 32-bit, which 24/7 runs an intensive data aquisition software (recording hundreds of variables in varying capture rates ranging from 10ms to 1s, but more faster than slower) while simultaneously converting the previously made data file into a different, condensed data format and pushes it onto a network. Excel or another data analysis tool is open occasionally.

The core of my question, is what the hard disk thinks of all this activity and what effects the much higher platter density and more cache will mean in this specific scenerio. Could someone educate me on HD's?

Thanks!

 

[Seven]

You need Samsung F3 or WD Black. You can also find used raptors with warranty pretty cheap IMO. The performance increase should be significant.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

any modern hard drive will be significantly faster. What really matters though is how much data is actually written on to the disk while doing this data acquisition. Does the computer store the data it acquires or does it just send it out to the network for other computers to collect? If it doesn't store the data it likely doesn't need a faster hard drive as mostly everything is done in the RAM and cpu cache.

 

[jaydee]

Yes, the computer (should have mentioned before, 32-bit WinXP) is constantly writing the data to a temp file on the local computer, then stops the recording, finalizes it to a readable format (takes less than a minute), waits 30 seconds, then starts recording again. About an hours worth of data is recorded before it finalizes the file and starts another one.

After the data is finalized a data converter starts and condenses the data to about 1/40th its size, and both the orginal data file and the condensed data file are pushed up to a network drive. This process takes about 10-15 minutes.

Another technological improvement for the new hard drive that I forgot to ask about and am not familiar with, I think I read somewhere that it has two processors? Does this mean that each platter has it's own processor and can write independently of each other?

Thanks!