Just bought a new HDD, please tell me if I chose poorly.

Discussion in 'SSD and HDD storage' started by dchalf10, Jun 26, 2011.

  1. dchalf10

    dchalf10 Banned

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    Firstly, I don't care about brand preferences, I care about prize: capacity: features: speed. I also Couldn't afford and SSD and if you can link me to a 2TB SSD then I'll join the SSD camp until then....it's mechanical all the way.

    This is the website I bought it from ( the cheapest in AUS really ).
    http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=2


    Unfortunately it doesn't let you deeplink to the direct page of the item but if you look at the HDD drop down tab and the Sata section, you can see comparable items, I use the term dubiously because there wasn't really any other Sata 3 drives in that size with that cache size for that price.

    I'm upgrading from Seagate 'SATAII NCQ 1.5TB 7200RPM 32mb Cache'

    So I will gain Sata III and twice the cache size, can I expect much or a difference for gaming load times etc or just for installation times aka larger file transfers?

    Either way I will be using It specifically for gaming ( only games installed on it ) whereas currently I have my OS/programs/games all on the one HDD and it's starting to feel a bit sluggish, even with frequent registry cleans etc

    I plan on buying another ( but smaller ) Sata III drive to use for the OS and programs specifically in a few weeks to avoid the current situation...

    Here is the specs. ( I apologise for the picture size ).

    [​IMG]
     
  2. Clawedge

    Clawedge Guest

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    have you tried to do a comparison benchmark with HDtune and compare the old one with the new one?

    my research indicates this drives currently has the highest aerial density platters seagate has on offer for the 3.5 inch drives, so its not bad

    what was the model of the previous drive? what i am looking for is 7200.??

    the new drive you bought is 7200.12
     
  3. dchalf10

    dchalf10 Banned

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    When I say 'bought' I mean it's in the mail to my house ( etailer ) so I can't bench it yet. ( that sentence came across as rude but it wasn't intended that way...not enough caffine... )

    If you can tell me how to check my HDD version ( through windows ) I'll check what version it is and then I'll download the program you mentioned and bench it later ( downloading something via firefox and it cannot be paused ( un-resumable ) so that will skew my current bench, in an hour though I'll have my bench results and post the screen.

    Good to hear that it's density is a plus. I hear it's 2 platter only as well so that will make it faster again ( My current is 3x500mb platters I believe, whereas the new one is 2x1TB platters ).
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2011
  4. thatguy91

    thatguy91 Guest

    Seagate are updateing their drive range very shortly, the above model is being replaced. They are heading to 1TB platters, which areal density wise whould give a nice boost in performance (if they are 7200 rpm, 64MB cache).

    For SATA III ensure you use the SATA III ports on the motherboard. Not sure the specifics of SATA II/III on your board without looking it up... lol. Also ensure AHCI mode is set in the bios.

    In terms of the drive slowing down, thats probably the pagefile doing that. If you have two fast drives in your system, make a partition on the drive that you will be doing the least 'loading' from of around 8GB, ensure its at the beginning of the drive, format it to exFAT, allocation unit size 32M. Format from the command prompt with format (drive): /a:32M /fs:exfat

    Then set the pagefile to just that drive with with 'system managed', and don't put anything else on the drive. The pagefile will never get fragmented, it will have the fastest possible access, and it can grow if needed. It does make a difference, as that is what I have at the moment and the computer is running the best it has ever done! It is actually noticeable!
     

  5. maleficarus™

    maleficarus™ Banned

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    Always been a fan of Seagate. Never once had an issue with any of the models I have bought! Currently using a 500GB 7200.12 single platter SataII drive with zero issues...
     
  6. CPC_RedDawn

    CPC_RedDawn Ancient Guru

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    Seagate have very good drives, but I will always hold true that the Samsung Spinpoint drives are awesome. Very good for either OS drive or a secondary games/media drive.

    I currently have

    x3 30GB OCZ SSD drives in raid0 as OS drive

    x1 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 as GAMES drive

    x1 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 as MEDIA drive#

    Works awesome!!
     
  7. dchalf10

    dchalf10 Banned

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    God dammit, firefox just deleted my huge comment

    *sigh*

    So now I'll save myself some time and write in short form.


    @thatguy91


    Damn, I thought this driver had 1TB platters...for $178AUS I thought it would anyway, especially as my current drive was only $80......

    I read what I would call a reasonable large portion ( the first 10 pages or so ) of the AHCI thread and it seemed there was conflicting opinions as to whether there was any benefit with mechanical drives.

    I won't be able to use it for a week anyway as I will be buying Windows 7 ( currently using Vista64bit Ultimate, which runs well enough ) and a new Sata III drive ( albeit smaller than my 'gaming drive' for thr OS so there is not much point in installing games on it now as the registry info for them will go bye bye's when I swap my primary drive and install win7.

    But if you say it works, I'll set up both drives in this way when installing win7.


    P.S

    I plan to set them up NOT in RAID ( just keep them separate )....I can get an OS drive that is 1TB for like $60.......I couldn't justify 2x$178...I don't have that sort of money, I just bought a $3.5k stereo and the coffers are low...

    @CPC_RedDawn

    My last drive was a Samsung (500gb F1 ) and it got a lot of bad sectors within a short period of time and I replaced it with my current one after 6 months or so and I haven't had a single HDD error in 2 years.

    Everyone has different experiences though. My last Zotac card died like 5 times ( repaird/replaced ) and it was at stock clocks for it's entire lifetime....But My current overclocked Zotac has not had a hickup in 2 years. The reason I went with Zotac again despite the card failures is because of their long warranty and good customer service. I just had exceptionally bad luck it would seem so to each their own ( See the Gigabyte/Asus failure rate debate....I've had 2 Asus boards DOA, but never had a Gigabyte board die or be DOA, but other have experienced the contrary ).

    So best of luck to us all with our frivolous purchases :)

    EDIT: lol @ tracking cookies, I just typed Zotac and then when I open a Techpowerup tab to download the DX11 texture pack for Crysis 2 low and behold...a Zotac add ;)

    @maleficarus™

    Same as above, my driver has been very reliable and fast but I have about 1TB used up and despite defragmentation and registry cleans it is getting bogged down so I will switch to 2 drives for that reason, so it doesn't 'fight' for HDD bandwidth between the programs/OS and games
     
  8. Clawedge

    Clawedge Guest

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    just post model you see in device manager, or via HDtune.

    If your current drive and new drive are both 7200.12, then you wont see much difference in-terms of sustained large file read/write, but lets wait for the benches to be sure
     
  9. dchalf10

    dchalf10 Banned

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    I couldn't find the revision number in device manager in ANY of the tabs of drop down tabs for the device decription or in HDtune, it only had the model number.

    But after googling the serial number the only thing that came up with a possible revision/version was googling "ST31500341AS" which is what HDtune says and on newegg it said it was 7200.11......don't know if that's wrong or not but until bench time that's the best we'll get I think....maybe it's a Vista thing :S
     
  10. Clawedge

    Clawedge Guest

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    yep, your right, current drive is 7200.11, so the new drive should give you a good speed bump,

    on a side note, i bought myself a Hitachi 7200rpm z7k320 2.5 inch hdd, and it has an aerial density of ~450Gb/sq.inch and its bitching fast, considering its a 2.5 inch drive. i have started switching to 2.5 inch drives to save energy , and i look forward to getting a 2TB platter in a 2.5 inch form factor. THAT will be interesting
     

  11. Lavcat

    Lavcat Master Guru

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    My first PC hard drive was a Priam (about 40MB for about $600). I never could get the Priam to work with the controller I bought for it, so I went with Seagate SCSI drives and never looked back. I still use Seagate SCSI hard drives (as well as a couple Intel SSD's). I never tried IDE, ATA, or SATA hard drives though.

    Over the years I've had one Seagate fail just before the five year warranty was up, but they replaced it promptly. Another failed after about six years and out of warranty.
     
  12. thatguy91

    thatguy91 Guest

    I personally think Samsung make the best HDD's, but their mechanical HDD division was bought recently by Seagate anyway. Its actually Samnsung that developed the 1TB platters :)

    The drive is more expensive because it is 7200RPM and 64MB cache, as well as SATA III (which there is no benefit on this particular drive!).

    The 2TB Samsung F4 eco drives aren't actually too slow, and they're only $87 here in Adelaide... :)

    The Seagate GREEN 2TB, 5900RPM, SATA3, 6GB/S, 3.5", 64MB model ST2000DL003 is $87.

    Its the fact its the Barracuda XT that cost you the money, and personally, I think the extra cost isn't worth it.

    A fast 1TB drive with a 2TB 'eco/green' secondary drive may have been a better choice... and still end up being cheaper!

    That said, the 1TB platter drives at full speed should rock, in which case I'd be getting that!

    OR

    A 1TB (1TB platter) main drive, and a 2TB (1TB platter ecxi) secondary drive, but that won't be possible till the end of the year...
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 26, 2011
  13. deltatux

    deltatux Guest

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    Just as long as you didn't get the infamous 7200.11 then you're fine. The 7200.11 are one of the worst HDD lines I've ever experienced, second to the Deathstars.

    deltatux
     
  14. dchalf10

    dchalf10 Banned

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    Yeah the price difference is insane and I thought there must be some benefit to it, it was just the 5900rpm that put me off the green driver, I plan on absolutely filling this drive with games so maybe it'll need the extra speed.

    I'm supposed to direct deposit tomorrow to get it shipped so it's not to late to change my order. If you can point me in the direction of some benchmarks to show there is no real world benefit over the other drive I'll swap it to the cheaper driver. ( the 2TB green drive and a second drive ).

    That had crossed my mind but I couldn't find any benches so I went on the on paper specs and the price difference thinking it would be faster.

    I've got until tomorrow morning to choose a HDD that I will keep for probably 4 years so if you can show me that the green drive is as fast or at least faster than my current drive, I'll swap my order for the 2 separate drives.

    The 2TB drive will be used purely for gaming and I'm hoping for a decent speed decrease in both game load times ( smaller files ) and install times ( larger files, aka it needs to be faster than my current drive.

    If I can get that with the green drive for 40% of the cost....I'm sold....literally.
    EDIT:

    Just did some stat comparisons and the sustained data rate of the green drive is 96mb/s whereas the XT is 138mb/s. Seeing as I plan on keeping it for a while I think I'll make the bad decision and get the faster drive. I'll get a second drive along with win7 in a few weeks anyway so I'd rather not settle for the slower drive. By slower I mean 50% faster than my current drive...but in 3 years when games are 50gig installs with full uncompressed 24bit/96khz 7 channel LPCM and come on blu rays........I'll with I hadn't bought the slower drive.
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2011

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