What is the slowest hard drive you still have in Service?

[cbn]

Mine is a Segate Barracuda 7200.10 80GB (3.5" HDD with only 11,000 hours on it) that according to hard drive platter database has a 160GB platter (so it is short stroked to get the 80GB capacity).

This is being used with a Core 2 SFF Pre-built (E8400, 6GB DDR3 RAM, Winodws 10) that rarely gets used. When it does get used, the main task is web browsing and for this purpose it is actually acceptable. However, when doing anything else I do notice the slowness.

Crystaldiskmark below:

 

[VirtualLarry]

Wow, slowness. Get that baby an SSD! (Hectron, Drevo, Gloway, maybe. Something Chinese and cheap.)

 

[Valantar]

@VirtualLarry, you must have something to contribute to this thread. Come on. You know you want to.

Also, where do you get those cheap chinese SSDs? You've got me intrigued (as long as they're not either faking high capacity or abominably bad quality).

I'll see if I can benchmark my oddly defective WD Green 2TB when I get home. It's not in service any more, I pulled it out of my HTPC a few months ago, but I've come to believe it's been defective for years. Used it as a boot drive at one point, which was so horribly slow I thought I was going insane. This convinced me to get my first SSD for my desktop, as I thought it was just the 5400rpm spindle speed that was messing with me (before this I had 3 7200rpm drives in RAID 5). The Storage Space on my HTPC it was mounted in often performed in the single kb/s range for sequential workloads ...

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Probably not much I'd consider super slow. I have a couple of really old drives I keep in drawer, as project drives, but they aren't in "active" service. I think the slowest every-day drive is a 24/7 drive I keep in my SAN to run the boot volume. It's a 120GB 2.5" 5400RPM drive. It sits in a Mirror with a 320GB drive. Since it's just for the boot volume, performance matters pretty much nil, so I just stuck in 2 of whatever I had available from the drawer.

 

[VirtualLarry]

@VirtualLarry, you must have something to contribute to this thread. Come on. You know you want to.

Sadly, I don't. I've been all-SSD for client machines, for some years now.

My HDDs (a mixture of 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, and 5TB) are all in my NAS and servers, and it's not exactly convenient to benchmark them.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DREVO-X1-SS...Solid-State-Drive-for-PC-Laptop-/162081519197

 

[EXCellR8]

I have some IDE drives from 2003 or so that still work... not sure how they actually perform though.

 

[coffeemonster]

I still use an old 5400rpm IDE drive from a 2005 laptop in a portable USB enclosure for taking TV series/Movies with me on long trips.

 

[Valantar]

Sadly, I don't. I've been all-SSD for client machines, for some years now.

Damn. You clearly know too much about how to make low-end PCs perform well.

 

[PliotronX]

My Dell 14z is screaming for some NAND but alas, its 5400 RPM drive makes its second gen mobile i5 feel like a P4.

 

[Rifter]

I still have a few 1TB 5400rpm seagate LP's i use for offsite storage, i have a external USB 3 3.5" HDD dock i use to backup media from my PC to store offsite.

 

[cbn]

My HDtune results:

Notice as it approaches the end of the 80GB capacity the sequential read drops down to 40 MB/s second. (Keep in mind this drive is based on a 160GB platter. If the platter were 80GB the starting and ending sequential read would be even slower).

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Couple of 160GB, 4200rpm 2.5" drives as a boot and backup boot drive in my server. Pulled them out of some old macbooks.

 

[cbn]

My Dell 14z is screaming for some NAND but alas, its 5400 RPM drive makes its second gen mobile i5 feel like a P4.

I found a review on that notebook here.

Crystaldiskmark 3.0 results from above link:

WDC Scorpio Blue WD6400BPVT-75HXZT3

Sequential Read: 77.67 MB/s
Sequential Write: 77.43 MB/s
512K Read: 24.18 MB/s
512K Write: 40.47 MB/s
4K Read: 0.312 MB/s
4K Write: 0.744 MB/s
4K QD32 Read: 0.831 MB/s
4K QD32 Write: 0.734 MB/s

10+ MB/s faster in sequential read and write when comparing to my 3.5" 7200rpm 80GB drive (in opening post).....but a bit slower in 4K.

 

[cbn]

Wow, slowness. Get that baby an SSD! (Hectron, Drevo, Gloway, maybe. Something Chinese and cheap.)

I have actually thought about doing that.....specifically the Intel 320 Series 80GB. However, this computer is so rarely used and basically always very close in the state to "clean install" that it pretty fast for web browsing.

With that mentioned, I am thinking about using this spare PC as a test mule for various free (and non-free) software installations. This to either fine tune the installation or to make sure the program doesn't install anything else I don't want prior to installing on my workstation (the computer I use 99% of the time).

So maybe I will end up upgrading? Not sure yet.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I miss the flood of cheap Intel 320 Series / G2 SSDs on ebay. For a while there it was flooded with corporate pulls and whatnot, you could get one for $25.

 

[ch33zw1z]

2x 2TB WD black

Everything else is SSD

 

[Puffnstuff]

Here are my two old WD 1.5tb black drives which are the last two spinners I have in my machines. Notice the disparity in the results between them. The one on the left is a WD1501FASS-00U0B0 and the one on the right is a WD1502FAEX-007BA0 and I just threw in my 850 pro boot drive for comparison.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I had two FASS 1.5's, both died.

 

[cbn]

Here are my two old WD 1.5tb black drives which are the last two spinners I have in my machines. Notice the disparity in the results between them. The one on the left is a WD1501FASS-00U0B0 and the one on the right is a WD1502FAEX-007BA0 and I just threw in my 850 pro boot drive for comparison.

According to hard drive platter database the WD1501FASS-00U0B0 and WD1502FAEX-007BA0 both have 500GB platters (and 7200 rpm spindle speed) so Sequential Read and Write should be similar. Have you tried de-fragmenting the drives?

 

[Puffnstuff]

I had two FASS 1.5's, both died.

How long did they last you? The FAEX is the replacement for the original FASS that died on me under warranty.

 

[Puffnstuff]

According to hard drive platter database the WD1501FASS-00U0B0 and WD1502FAEX-007BA0 both have 500GB platters (and 7200 rpm spindle speed) so I don't know why the Sequential Read and Write are so different? Have you tried de-fragmenting the drives?

Both are defragged but the models are different and excel in different ways. I was surprised the first time I benched them after the original FASS was replaced with the FAEX. Neither drive is terribly fast and are begging to be replaced by ssd's when I can afford them.

 

[Brado78]

2.5 TB WD Green EARX model, this thing has 4 platters..

 

[Rifter]

2.5 TB WD Green EARX model, this thing has 4 platters..

I had one of these blow up on me, not sure what happened almost seems like the platters fell off the spindle or something, as when it died it shook my whole pc case made a loud screcching sound followed by a very loud thudd. And when i went to remove it found it had actually snapped the two screws holding it into the 3.5" bay on one side, seems like the HDD tried to rotate in its bay.

Strangest HDD death i have ever personally witnessed.

 

[Brado78]

If it weren't for the data loss, that would be neat to see

 

[Puffnstuff]

Strangest HDD death i have ever personally witnessed.

For the longest time in my realm that honor belonged to an old IBM Deskstar 75XP that had the click of death until it finally gave in. Not so long ago I had a WD Veloraptor 600gb drive suddenly crash with a loud clack sound grinding to a halt which has been the most dramatic drive death I've experienced.

 

[bononos]

Wow, slowness. Get that baby an SSD! (Hectron, Drevo, Gloway, maybe. Something Chinese and cheap.)

My stomach knotted up at your suggestion of getting cheap Chinese ssds. Even looking past the dubious brandnames and lack of warranty, I would be very wary of built in spyware in the firmware.