Hard Drives - What to buy?

What should I do?

  • Nothing. The problem is not your hard drive.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Buy a SAS HD

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Buy a SCSI HD

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Increase the cache size to 16 MB

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Increase the cache size 32+ MB

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Increase the RPM to 10,000

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Increase the RPM to 15,000

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Increase the cache to 16+ MB and increase RPM to 10,000+

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0

the100thballoon

Emperor
Joined
Aug 13, 2003
Messages
1,239
My computer has poor performance, and I think my hard drives are to blame. I built this machine in Fall 2008. First, I'll give you the specs, and then I'll tell you about the problem.

Specs:

Processor: AMD Phenom 9850 (2.5 GHz Quadcore)
Motherboard: ASUS M3N-HD/HDMI board
RAM: 4x Kingston 2GB DDR2 SDRAM = 8GB
Graphics: MSI GeForce GTX 260
Data Storage: Several.
1X Western Digital WD800AAJS 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
1x Western Digital WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
1x Western Digital WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
1x Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
*The first two HDs are raided together. The other two drives act alone, but my motherboard forces me to raid them individually because I chose to raid the first two.​
Power: 630W
OS: Windows7 64-bit (installed on the first set of HDs)

Problem: Often my computer lags when opening programs and accessing files within a program (like opening mp3s with iTunes). It also just seems slow compared to other computers with guaranteed less-powerful specs. The HD with my OS on it is not even close to full, but I'm wondering whether or not my HDs are limiting the performance of my computer as a whole. What do you think?

I don't know a whole hell of a lot about computers. I know enough to build one, but, after a few years, I've forgotten a lot of what I learned when I was deciding what to buy.

I'm seriously considering upgrading the HD that stores all of the main Windows and program files. I would prefer not to have to upgrade my motherboard as well. Please offer me some suggestions. I'm sort of lost...

THANKS!
 
Another tidbit of information: Windows7 rates my hardware like so.

Processor: 7.1
Memory: 7.2
Graphics: 7.3
Gaming Graphics: 7.3
Primary Hard Disk: 5.9

Dunno if this is relevant, but this is what first led me to question my HD.

Thanks!
 
Well, generally a computer only runs as fast as its slowest component. Slowest components usually the HDD.

BTW, hard drive is usually HDD (extra D means Disk Drive). HD means high-definition ;)
 
Know anything about HDD? ;)

Would SAS be a better (faster) investment than SATA?
 
I have it set to defrag daily. On the primary drive, I've got 90GB free of 149GB.
 
Your operating system hard drives are the most underwhelming part of your system by a good margin, even with RAID. The two 80 GBs are quite small by today's standards, which is bad for speed. The two most important factors in hard drive speed are how fast the drives spin (7200 RPM is average), and how dense they are (the more dense it is, the less distance the needle has to travel to read data). Generally, the bigger the hard drive is, the denser it is, so your 80 GB drives aren't very dense, especially for 7200 RPM drives. The RAID (since it is RAID 0) will help some, but even that won't get you blazing speeds.

There's a few options here. Probably the cheapest, but also the least helpful, would be to buy one big 1.5 TB or so drive, giving you more capacity and also faster speeds than even the two 80 GB's raided together. If you are just using four drives because you had four drives laying around, this wouldn't be a bad option - if you are using four drives so a crash won't destroy everything, this probably isn't ideal for you.

The next step up, and probably the one I'd be inclined to go with, is to replace the two 80 GB drives with one 10,000 RPM drive of similar (total) capacity, such as this 150 GB Western Digital VelociRaptor. 10,000 RPM drives are faster in two key areas. The first is the traditional transfer of large amounts of data. This will make copying large files quicker. This speed is measured in MB/s (megabytes per second), and the 10,000 RPM should be at least as fast as your two 80 GB drives, and probably a good amount faster. The second is latency. Basically, there's a minimum amount of time it takes for the hard drive to move from reading one area to reading another. This is measured in milliseconds. 7200 RPM drives have a latency of 10-20 milliseconds, depending on the drive. 10,000 RPM drives have latency of 3-4 milliseconds. If you happen to be reading lots of small files, especially if they are scattered across the drive, this can make a huge difference, as in that case latency will account for nearly all the wait time. Note that a 300 GB VelociRaptor is available for $40 more, and it will be faster in the MB/s sense.

The third option is to buy a solid state drive. These new drives don't have moving parts, and the latency on them is virtually nothing (0.1 milliseconds or less). That's their biggest advantage, but many of them have much quicker MB/s speeds as well, are quiter, and use less power. The downside is that they are more expensive. A 160 GB SSD from Intel costs $400. The quality of SSDs is also less consistent amongst manufacturers. The cheaper ones are generally slower (some no faster than regular hard drives in the MB/s sense), and historically aren't as reliable. If I were to buy one, my preferred order of manufacturers would be Intel, Samsung, and OCZ (in order). Other manufacturers may also be good, but do your research first. A large number of the first generation of SSDs (circa 2008) had an issue where their latency often went as high as 500ms (making the computer dreadfully slow), and Intel and Samsung were about the only manufacturers who used higher quality components that didn't suffer from this (OCZ was notably more helpful to their affected customers than most manufacturers). This issue shouldn't be in any new SSDs, but it does show that SSDs aren't as mature as hard drives. If you happen to buy used (not recommended with SSDs), be sure you either know the exact model (and that it is current), or that it is an Intel or Samsung SSD. If you have and are willing to spend the money, there's little reason not to go with a high-quality SSD (unless you need more capacity, but secondary drives can fulfill that).

SAS drives are generally 10,000 or 15,000 RPM, have low latency (as good or better than the VelociRaptor), and are fast (MB/s wise). However, they are expensive and most motherboards don't support them. Thus I wouldn't recommend going that path. If you're willing to spend a lot to get top-notch performance, an SSD would give as good of performance, cost no more than an SAS drive and supporting motherboard (which also might require you to buy new RAM or a CPU), and be easier to put in. If you were building a new system and wanted fast but also highly mature and proven drives, SAS would be worth considering, but not for an existing non-server system.

The non-hardware target would be software, especially anti-virus or anti-spyware software. They can make a computer noticeably less snappy (of course, so can actual viruses or spyware). Different people advocate different software, but trying a different one might make a noticeable difference. But sticking with the same one, whichever that is, and using a VelociRaptor or SSD would also make a noticeable difference.

Didn't vote because it depends on your budget which of these is most appropriate.
 
Wow! Thanks a bunch. I very much appreciate all the information. I think I'm going to go with this VelociRaptor. It's 450GB (denser means faster, right?) and it has a larger cache. The two main differences between that one and the 300GB you recommend are (a) storage size (b) cache size and (c) this one is rated as 6 GB/s whereas the 300GB drive is rated at 3 GB/s. What do you think? Is it worth the extra $100, or would I be spending $100 for a small performance boost?

Thanks again, mate. Can't express that enough haha
 
It will still be much slower than an SSD. If you want a very efficient computer, get a small SSD and load it with your OS and your most frequently used apps.
 
Forget The Raptors. They became obsolete when the first consumer SSD's were released. A modern SSD using SATA 3 can do 350MB/s reads pretty easy. You would need some serious platter-based hardware to match that (Bunch of max-cap 15000RPM short-stroked drives running in RAID with a good controller)

The price difference between a Velociraptor and a decently-sized SSD is almost nonexistent but the performance difference is significant.
 
Problem: Often my computer lags when opening programs and accessing files within a program (like opening mp3s with iTunes).

That's exactly the point where SSDs show their biggest advantage :) You are feeling the effect that moving the read/write heads of a HDD is really slow compared to all other things going on in your computer. Having old and slow HDDs doesn't help, either.
Activities that are limited by harddrive latency are sped up by roughly a factor of ten or even more when using a SSD compared to a HDD.

And from personal experience I can attest that there are no noticable lags anymore when opening programs and (small) files with a SSD. Using a Intel X25-M for one year, extremely satisfied with it :goodjob:

Really, compared to a SSD even RAIDed Raptors have very very slow access times.
 
@the100thballoon

If your raid controller allows you to check your HDD's S.M.A.R.T. reports do it, its a quick and easy way to see if they are dying.

Upgrading your pc with a small SSD for the OS and main apps is the surest way give it a nice boost in speed/responsiveness, however if you wait a short while you can get the twice as fast next gen SSD's that are about to come out (instead of the current gen that are based on the years old controllers).
 
I've pretty much decided to go with this SSD. But before I buy it, what do you all think?

It looks like it connects to power and the board using regular SATA cables. Is this correct?
 
Ok. Thanks a bunch!

EDIT: Just ordered. Should be here tomorrow. I'll let you know what I think. Thanks for all the advice!
 
FWIW, Vista and Win7 do this automatically, and defragging is unnecessary for SSDs... the days of manual defrags are basically over.

Good to know thanks!

So, how come my Windows XP with only a single once-defragged (yeah yeah, I'm lazy) 500 gig hard drive and less RAM is not having lag issues yet his slightly-superior system is?
 
FWIW, Vista and Win7 do this automatically, and defragging is unnecessary for SSDs... the days of manual defrags are basically over.
Only for computers left on all the time, which is less common for many laptops (not to mention your average user).

(My parents were having a problem that their Vista laptop was always slow - the problem is that every time they used it, it was doing the defrag. And worse, it never seemed to have managed to have finished, as it wasn't defragged until I did it manually and left it to do the job.)
 
It's 2010. SCSI is history and SAS is mostly overpriced SATA drives which use a few extra commands. And require SAS controllers.
An SSD for the system is a far better expenditure than going for higher rpms. Keep using a regular magnetic drive for the archive/seldom used stuff.
 
Another quick question before I install my new SSD tomorrow:

I have the two 80GB HDD raided together as one drive, and the other two HDD are assigned their own drive each. Can I just disconnect the two 80GB hard drives, plug in the SSD, set it up using the RAID setup utility as its own drive, install Windows on it, and maintain the integrity of the other two drives (500GB and 160GB)?

I'm concerned about my 500GB disk especially because it has a lot of important stuff on it. I kinda feel like this is a dumb question, but thought I'd ask just in case.

Can I just unraid all of my drives? Will that cause me to lose the data on the 500GB drive?
 
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