Which HDD to use for C: Drive: WD Raptor or Seagate 7200.10

[synapse88]

so i have two drives i'm comparing with HD Tach:

1) 74GB SATA WD Raptor 10,000RPM, added as a secondary drive
2) 250GB SATA Seagate ST3250310AS, 7200RPM, C drive,booting Vista

Once into Vista I run HD Tach, and it says:

1) Raptor: Burst speed is around 121 MB/s and the Sequential Read Speed stays around 70MB/s - Random access time is 7.9ms, Average read is 65.1MB/s

2) Seagate: Burst speed is 216 MB/s and the Sequential Read Speed stays around 95 MB/s. Random access time is 15.1ms, Average Read is 85.8 MB/s

Excluding the understandable difference in access time, do the read speeds make any sense?? Any reason to think that the only reason the Seagate is so much faster is because its the primary boot drive? Any settings or anything I need to check? I would think the Raptor would best this drive. I was gonna move the Windows installation to the Raptor but now I'm having second thoughts...


i found some benchmarks for these two drives, and they match the numbers i produced.
I didn't mention that the Seagate is a 7200.10 series, which uses perpendicular recording.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/10063/12

If you look thru the various tests, the Seagate bests the 74GB Raptor on a number of tests, but not nearly all of them. I know what seek time is, but how important is it for everyday use, compared to much faster read times from the seagate?

If you had to choose between the two drives, which one would you run your OS on?
(I have plenty of other drives to use for storage, so thats not a concern)

 

[sutahz]

Your focusing on the synthetic. Focus on the real-world, or at least real-world emulation.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/10063/3

"Any reason to think that the only reason the Seagate is so much faster is because its the primary boot drive?" Nope

If I had both those drives. I'd put my OS on the seagate and games on the raptor. If you dont game, i suppose i'd put the OS on the raptor.

 

[synapse88]

any other opinions on this one?

 

[Thor86]

150GB Raptor.

 

[Johnbear007]

Originally posted by: Thor86
150GB Raptor.

She wasnt asking about buying a new drive, so that wasnt all that helpful


Regardless,

I'm interested in the same thing, I have a somewhat similiar situation. More opinions appreciated.

 

[sutahz]

More opinions? Raptor doesnt help that much UNLESS you:
think in your head "OMGZ, i have a MF'ing raptor and my MF'ing computer is going to be so f'ing fast that my mind will almost blow up" then, your comptuer will be fast. Mind over matter "my friend", if you think its fast, it will be fast.

 

[imported_wired247]

these results are precisely why I went with the seagate drives.

It was a close call between raptors and the seagates, but I went with the seagates because of the benchmarks and also because I prefer to move forward in technology over stagnation, and perpendicular recording is a great new real life application of spintronics


most of the access time is physically limited to the average number of revolutions it takes at a certain speed (7200rpm / 10krpm)

so faster speed drives will always have better access times.

but what mattered more to me was throughput...

 

[Blain]

Listen to me... I'm a PC Guru! :laugh:

 

[synapse88]

Originally posted by: wired247
most of the access time is physically limited to the average number of revolutions it takes at a certain speed (7200rpm / 10krpm)

so faster speed drives will always have better access times.

but what mattered more to me was throughput...

I thought access time was more a function of drive size and not the drives RPMs, and that throughput is a function of RPMs. Someone please correct me if i'm wrong...

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: Blain

Listen to me... I'm a PC Guru! :laugh:

Pff, should be in at least 1280*1024 for wallpapers these days.

 

[Tsuwamono]

i would use the seagate as the boot and the raptor as the game drive.

 

[imported_wired247]

Originally posted by: synapse88

Originally posted by: wired247
most of the access time is physically limited to the average number of revolutions it takes at a certain speed (7200rpm / 10krpm)

so faster speed drives will always have better access times.

but what mattered more to me was throughput...

I thought access time was more a function of drive size and not the drives RPMs, and that throughput is a function of RPMs. Someone please correct me if i'm wrong...

access time is most definitely a function of RPM, go look at any benchmarks.

with native command queueing (google it if necessary) is all you can do to optimize access time, other than that it's a direct function of drive speed.


faster drive RPM with the same data density will be higher throughput.

however the perpendicularly recorded hard drives have a higher data density, therefore they can achieve higher throughput at lower RPM


there are also arguments for going with 2.5" hard drives because they can have incredibly high throughput and lower access times at the same RPM

Originally posted by: Blain

Listen to me... I'm a PC Guru! :laugh:

who is this directed at?

(as # of posts --> infinity, %cryptic messages --> 100)