• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

What drive size to use for O/S - is 500GB too slow

B

blackrain

Golden Member
I have a 200GB SATA150 drive that I was going to use for an O/S drive. However, it is going to take me a while to back up and organize some of the old stuff that is on it. I am thinking of just buying a new SATA300 drive. I know the general rule that you want to use smaller faster drives for the O/S and larger slower drives for storage. So my question is where do the WD 500GB drives fall? I was thinking about getting this for an O/S drive:

http://www.staples.com/Western-Digit...product_682060

This for an HTPC that I will use for heavy gaming, entertainment (HD) and possibly even AVCHD editing

I already have a 1TB in the HTPC that will be used for main storage. I am probably going to set this up as a winxp/win7 dual boot, and may even store some things on the 500GB drive with a backup elsewhere.
 
Last edited:
I have a staples coupon to get the WD drive for about $40. Is there much difference between the spinpoint and the WD Blue? It sounds like the 500GB drives are fine for an O/S drive
 
Whats this general rule rumor about smaller = faster?
Never heard this before, Sounds like nonsence.
 
Lorne said:
Whats this general rule rumor about smaller = faster?
Never heard this before, Sounds like nonsence.
Click to expand...

Lets say you have a 1 TB drive. The hard drive has to seek for O/S operation as well as other operations like a game (or other multitasking). Imagine the amount of work the hard drive has to do to go back and forth between the O/S system file locations and other locations at far ends of the 1TB of space. The wear and tear is probably not so good. If the 1 TB drive is used only for storage, the drive is only seeking for stored files, and not going back and forth between O/S operations and distant stored files.

Didn't mean to suggest that smaller was faster. I think it does make sense to not use a 1 TB as an O/S drive. Just not sure where a 500GB drive falls under this logic.
 
blackrain said:
Lets say you have a 1 TB drive. The hard drive has to seek for O/S operation as well as other operations like a game (or other multitasking). Imagine the amount of work the hard drive has to do to go back and forth between the O/S system file locations and other locations at far ends of the 1TB of space. The wear and tear is probably not so good. If the 1 TB drive is used only for storage, the drive is only seeking for stored files, and not going back and forth between O/S operations and distant stored files.

Didn't mean to suggest that smaller was faster. I think it does make sense to not use a 1 TB as an O/S drive. Just not sure where a 500GB drive falls under this logic.
Click to expand...
Most people have computers that run only one HDD anyways. Doesn't seem like there's any problems with that.

You choose to use the 1TB HDD as OS disk because of the HDD's high performance characteristics, not because of it's capacity.

If you're so annoyed with using a 1TB HDD for your O/S, get yourself an SSD. Then you can worry about the cells dying from write and erase cycles instead of the HDD working too hard.
 
blackrain said:
So my question is where do the WD 500GB drives fall? I was thinking about getting this for an O/S drive:

http://www.staples.com/Western-Digit...product_682060
Click to expand...

If you have a coupon and can get it for $40ish, go for it. It will work fine.

As far as speed....size isn't really a big factor. What you want is density. Some 500gb drives use one platter for all 500gb. This 'closeness' means the drive doesn't have to look as far....so to speak.
Western Digitals faster disk are their 'Black' series of drives. link
 
Last edited:
blackrain said:
Lets say you have a 1 TB drive. The hard drive has to seek for O/S operation as well as other operations like a game (or other multitasking). Imagine the amount of work the hard drive has to do to go back and forth between the O/S system file locations and other locations at far ends of the 1TB of space. The wear and tear is probably not so good. If the 1 TB drive is used only for storage, the drive is only seeking for stored files, and not going back and forth between O/S operations and distant stored files.

Didn't mean to suggest that smaller was faster. I think it does make sense to not use a 1 TB as an O/S drive. Just not sure where a 500GB drive falls under this logic.
Click to expand...

Wear and tear would be much higher on a smaller capacity drive, the platters if eg. were both 3.5 and same RPM on 2 drives and one drive is 75GB and the other 1T, The heads make a longer trip/move to reach identical files on the smaller drive, The only time this wouldnt be logical would be that the 1T is full and badly fragmented.
The other differences between them like data compression per platter makes a huge difference, THe higher it is the faster and less head movement
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top