Performance boost from IDE to Sata

[qwertyaas]

I am still using older IDE harddrives in my system (yes I know, considering everything in my system, how am I still using these things?! ). Right now I am getting 45MB Average time and 13-14s Access time and 65-80 Burst rate.

I want to get a Caviar Black 640GB but will it give me that much of a performance boost? They get around 95MB Average transfers and 11s Access time if I remember correctly.

To be honest, my drives seem fast to me as it is, and I really don't use much space at all (my main drive have maybe 40GB on it, the second one has ~10GB). The rest just goes on an external so space isn't really a reason of getting a new drive. It's just one of those, "I probably should already" type purchases. That, and I am really not in the mood to either reinstall everything or even to clone the drive (I become lazier with my computer as time goes on, I haven't formatted in 2 years!).

So basically, how much of a boost am I looking at here?

 

[HendrixFan]

If you are already struggling to fill the 160GB you have, the 640GB isn't needed.

If you do want the speed boost, then a SSD drive is the way to go. Since space already is not an issue for you, the smaller size of SSD drives really isn't a negative.

 

[qwertyaas]

Originally posted by: HendrixFan
If you are already struggling to fill the 160GB you have, the 640GB isn't needed.

If you do want the speed boost, then a SSD drive is the way to go. Since space already is not an issue for you, the smaller size of SSD drives really isn't a negative.

True, but I also don't want to spend all too much money. $65 for a Caviar Black 640GB is a nice price.

But the storage part is true, but if there is a significant speed boost jumping to the WD as well, then it would probably be worth it.

 

[andrei3333]

yes you will see a speed boost, i have 2 ide drives in my system now and 3 sata drives (1.5 and 3.0 ) the sata drives seem identical to each other in speed but the ide drives are noticeably slower... HDD prices are lower than ever, get one and forget about it, cannot go wrong

 

[Zap]

The biggest performance boost will be from the drive having higher density platters. I'm sure the SATA part helps, but you can put a SATA>EIDE adapter on it and still get better performance than your old drive.

If you really don't need the space, perhaps look for one of the 320GB single platter drives, or the new/upcoming 500GB single platter drives.

Alternately, get the bigger drive and "short stroke" it by creating a partition of less than half the space and intentionally letting the rest go to waste. If you really won't be using the extra capacity, it might increase performance even more.

 

[qwertyaas]

Originally posted by: Zap
The biggest performance boost will be from the drive having higher density platters. I'm sure the SATA part helps, but you can put a SATA>EIDE adapter on it and still get better performance than your old drive.

If you really don't need the space, perhaps look for one of the 320GB single platter drives, or the new/upcoming 500GB single platter drives.

Alternately, get the bigger drive and "short stroke" it by creating a partition of less than half the space and intentionally letting the rest go to waste. If you really won't be using the extra capacity, it might increase performance even more.

Well, that's why I was considering the Caviar Black 640gb. It has two 320GB platters. I know the difference doesn't lie in the interface itself, I just mean going from my current drives to a newer drive such as the WD.

I really have no idea how the performance jump would be since at the moment, it doesn't seem like my OS drive is all that slow at all. Then again, I don't know what a newer drive would be like so I can't really compare.

It's just one of those, "I might as well" upgrade, even thought I really don't need it.

 

[elconejito]

I'd say go for it, if you have the $$$ burning a hole in your pocket. They aren't expensive and it should give you a noticeable increase.

I went from a WD2500KS (the older 250GB from WD) to the WD6400AAKS (the 16mb cache version, I guess "Blue" in the new naming scheme). Average read went from 54MB/s to 92MB/s, nearly double. And access time went from 13.6ms to 12.1ms. More important than the benchmarks... it "felt" a lot faster.

 

[qwertyaas]

Originally posted by: elconejito
I'd say go for it, if you have the $$$ burning a hole in your pocket. They aren't expensive and it should give you a noticeable increase.

I went from a WD2500KS (the older 250GB from WD) to the WD6400AAKS (the 16mb cache version, I guess "Blue" in the new naming scheme). Average read went from 54MB/s to 92MB/s, nearly double. And access time went from 13.6ms to 12.1ms. More important than the benchmarks... it "felt" a lot faster.

I see, so going from my 45MB/s average and 14.x access, should be a nice boost. Although I am confused between Cavier SE16, Blue and Black. All three of them seem to have near indentical benchmarks. Only difference is it seems the black is a bit louder then the other two (other then the technical differences that dont' seem to affect performance much, well that, and the 5 year warranty).

 

[elconejito]

Caviar SE16 is the same as the Caviar Blue. They have 16mb cache. WD just recently started naming the drives Green (low power), Blue (16mb cache, mainstream I guess), and Black (32mb cache, high performance). The Blacks are usually a little faster than a similar Blue or SE16 model... for the most part. This doesn't take into account generational changes, like the current 320GB WD3200AAKS has 1x320GB platter, but the older ones with the same model name are 2x160GB platters.

But specific to the one you're asking about, the WD 640GB SE16 (Blue) or Black are the same 2 platter design. As far as I know, they only differ in the cache sizes. It is possible WD puts a different firmware or something that "tunes" it more for performance, but that would just be a guess on my part. If the price is the same (or near enough) get the Black. If there is a bigger difference, the SE16 is plenty fast. I think they're $10 apart at newegg right now. In my opinion, i'd get the SE16. However, they were both the same price for about a week, in that case I'd get the Black.

 

[qwertyaas]

Originally posted by: elconejito
Caviar SE16 is the same as the Caviar Blue. They have 16mb cache. WD just recently started naming the drives Green (low power), Blue (16mb cache, mainstream I guess), and Black (32mb cache, high performance). The Blacks are usually a little faster than a similar Blue or SE16 model... for the most part. This doesn't take into account generational changes, like the current 320GB WD3200AAKS has 1x320GB platter, but the older ones with the same model name are 2x160GB platters.

But specific to the one you're asking about, the WD 640GB SE16 (Blue) or Black are the same 2 platter design. As far as I know, they only differ in the cache sizes. It is possible WD puts a different firmware or something that "tunes" it more for performance, but that would just be a guess on my part. If the price is the same (or near enough) get the Black. If there is a bigger difference, the SE16 is plenty fast. I think they're $10 apart at newegg right now. In my opinion, i'd get the SE16. However, they were both the same price for about a week, in that case I'd get the Black.

I think the other difference is the Black has a 5 year warranty as opposed to the 3 year on the Blue.

But regardless, I am considering just waiting it out and seeing if SSDs drop in price in the near future (fall maybe) and going for that as an OS drive. As I am not in dire need of extra space and I am fine with performance. I just wanted a new drive because... why not. Then I realized I really don't want to reinstall Vista - I'll just wait until W7 - so I guess that is time for the upgrade!

For what I use my PC, load times are quick enough. Then again, all I really do lately is either browse some forums, or play TF2. Not much going on here anymore...