Need HD Help

[ConditionZero]

Hi guys, I just put together my new A64 system. IT works pretty good, but I am dissatisfied with loading times and general use. I suspect that it is the Hard Drives becuase I kept them from my old pc

I have 2 harddrives right now. They are

Primary: http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/ata/st310211a.html
Secondary: Seagate Barricuda st320013a

I got them from work for free. I was told the first one was better although I wanted to put the barricuda first. I have them plugged into the IDE cables. I don't know much about SATA or RAID.

Any help or suggestions?

 

[Vegitto]

These are 5400 RPM parts. The current standard is 7200 RPM, or a third faster (on average) than what you currently have. I suggest getting on of those 7200 RPM drives, or better yet, if you can afford it, a 10.000 RPM Western Digital Raptor drive.

 

[ConditionZero]

I think the first one is a 5400 1mb. My second one is a 7200 2mb. I have my games and page file on the second one.

 

[Vegitto]

2 MB is too little. Buy a drive with 8~16. That'll make you notice the difference.

 

[ConditionZero]

I am pretty strapped for cash roght now. Would you put this as a higher priority than upgrading from 512mb to 1gb ram? Is there anything I can do with what I have to make it better. What is Raid0? My 1Mb PI time is 38s btw.

 

[Vegitto]

First upgrade your memory, and then get a secondhand 7200 RPM 8 MB drive, okay?

EDIT: Raid0 is known as 'striping'. It speeds the drives up, but the second part (fastest) will only go as fast as the first part (slowest). So the 7200 RPM drive you have will perform similairly to the 5400 RPM drive you have. For more info, visit this WiKi, okay?

 

[TankGuys]

Originally posted by: ConditionZero
I am pretty strapped for cash roght now. Would you put this as a higher priority than upgrading from 512mb to 1gb ram? Is there anything I can do with what I have to make it better. What is Raid0? My 1Mb PI time is 38s btw.

Raid 0 is not a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. You get very little performance increase at a huge increase in data lose potential.

If you keep your eye out, you can often find 120-200 Gb 7200RPM drives either with rebates (yea I know people don't like those) or on sale for really low prices.

 

[ConditionZero]

I can't imagine using more than 40gb.

 

[Vegitto]

Originally posted by: TankGuys

Originally posted by: ConditionZero
I am pretty strapped for cash roght now. Would you put this as a higher priority than upgrading from 512mb to 1gb ram? Is there anything I can do with what I have to make it better. What is Raid0? My 1Mb PI time is 38s btw.

Raid 0 is not a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. You get very little performance increase at a huge increase in data lose potential.

If you keep your eye out, you can often find 120-200 Gb 7200RPM drives either with rebates (yea I know people don't like those) or on sale for really low prices.

That opinion is personal. It can make a difference in speed, but I must agree, dataloss appears faster. However, this problem can be overcome by using either RAID 0+1 or RAID 5, but both need 4 drives.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Vegitto -- you say "problem can be overcome by using either RAID 0+1 or RAID 5, but both need 4 drives."

I think RAID 5 just needs three drives.

I confirm that large capacity UATA/100/133 and SATA150 drives can now be had with rebates so that the net price can be between $40 and $70. Frye's runs those ads frequently for Seagate and WD.

I'm personally happy with my RAID0 setup, although the performance boost is mostly seen in large-file operations like video rendering. But -- not being stupid and thoughtless -- I back up regularly to a USB2 drive.

If I had it to do over, I'd boot from a single disk (like a WD Raptor) and use RAID0 exclusively for large video files. But when I chose my mobo, it only came with two ICH5 SATA150 plugs. The new boards have four plugs, and as I said, I think you only need to use three of them with three drives for RAID5.

 

[wmansfield]

RAID 5 requires at least 3 drives, yes.

 

[furballi]

Raid 0 is NOT free. It requires more of your CPU clock time.

 

[Vegitto]

Originally posted by: furballi
Raid 0 is NOT free. It requires more of your CPU clock time.

Except when you have a RAID PCI (-E/-X) card...