New hard drive, shall I bother moving?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Simon
  • Start date Start date
Mike Hall - MVP said:
Those who suggested that it would were being a little optimistic. You
have also lost a great external back up drive..
Click to expand...


Are you proudly waving your ignorance around again? Wouldn't it make a lot
more sense to use a faster drive as the OS drive, as that is basically the
slowest part of any system, and use the slower ones for backup?

I still have two 80GB drives, which were the fastest model around in 2001
(and one of the very first with Fluid Dynamic Bearings and the only one ever
made with a ATA/133 interface, as far as I know). That was just one
generation before 120GB drives were around, and my 500GB drives are *much*
faster than the 80GB ones. I've also got two WD Raptor 10,000rpm drives, so
I am aware of how different speeds can be.

The OP can test using one of these programs:

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach

ss.
 
Synapse Syndrome said:
The OP can test using one of these programs:

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach
Click to expand...


Another one that you could use is SiSoft Sandra:

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/


It's been quite a while since I last used it. While this one involves
installing the program and does all sorts of other benchmarks, unlike the
other two, it allows you to compare the performance of drives from different
generations, using particular models as examples.

Oh, HD Tach does that too.

ss.
 
Simon said:
I am not sure I understand, what external drive is that?

Simon
Click to expand...


Your 500gb drive if placed in a USB enclosure would make a great backup
drive. It is better to use a large drive in this way as it allows more scope
for backups..
 
Synapse Syndrome said:
Are you proudly waving your ignorance around again? Wouldn't it make a
lot more sense to use a faster drive as the OS drive, as that is basically
the slowest part of any system, and use the slower ones for backup?

I still have two 80GB drives, which were the fastest model around in 2001
(and one of the very first with Fluid Dynamic Bearings and the only one
ever made with a ATA/133 interface, as far as I know). That was just one
generation before 120GB drives were around, and my 500GB drives are *much*
faster than the 80GB ones. I've also got two WD Raptor 10,000rpm drives,
so I am aware of how different speeds can be.

The OP can test using one of these programs:

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach

ss.
Click to expand...


It has nothing to do with arrogance.

While the 500gb drive has better performance, it will not be noticeable so
much unless the OP does things which involve a substantial amount of data
movement or pagefile usage and, in the meantime, he now has less options
regarding scope for backups..
 
Mike Hall - MVP said:
It has nothing to do with arrogance.
Click to expand...

I said 'ignorance'. Leave the arrogance to me ;-)

While the 500gb drive has better performance, it will not be noticeable
so much unless the OP does things which involve a substantial amount of
data movement or pagefile usage and, in the meantime, he now has less
options regarding scope for backups..
Click to expand...


He has two 120GB drives, which is what he can use for backups. He may not
choose to backup everything, like media files (which would be the only sort
of files most people would be able to fill the large drives of today with).
He also may not choose to backup the OS and applications, as they can be
replaced.

I have all my important data on two 500GB drives in RAID-1, which is good
protection against drive failure. All irreplaceable files are backed up on
the Amazon S3 servers, using JungleDisk.

ss.
 
I hear that . ;-) Out of curiosity I tried that Crystal Diskmark utility
that was recommended on my own drives. I just recently put in a 1TB drive,
with Vista running on my 3 year old 300GB drive. BTW I own Maxtor drives
that are much older than that and still working fine. The old drive is SATA
1 and the new drive is SATA2 but connected to the same SATA 1 controller.
DiskMark rated the old drive at 52.38MB/s and 56.99 MB/s on a 100MB
sequential write/read while the new drive came in at 88.24 MB/s write and
92.58MB/s read.
 
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