Whats the best boot drive

brummyboy

brummyboy

brummyboy

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After a new boot drive for my machine, cant afford to go with the new SSD's, so cant decide between;

Western Digital VelociRaptor 150GB 10000RPM SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD1500HLFS)

or

Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD6401AALS)

Would the be much performance increase between a 10k rpm drive over a 7.2k rpm when the 7.2k has 32MB Cache?
 
Raid a couple of Western Digital RE3s :). I personally think the Velociraptors are too expensive.

But to answer your question yes the Velociraptor would boot quicker than the Caviar drive.
 
Thats my opinion too, just trying to decide whether the extra £££ is worth it, if performance increase is considerable in boot times and load times on programs/games then I'll be tempted. if its too close to call I'll just go with the cheaper option of a 32MB cache drive
 
I would go for the 640GB as well, there will be a difference but not a huge one - and you will be more than happy with the extra space you will get!
 
Do you really need 640GB for a boot drive?

If you're not gonna put data on it and you don't want to pay the extra for a velociraptor, get a single-platter 320GB drive instead; especially if this a stop-gap measure.
 
Imy said:
Do you really need 640GB for a boot drive?

If you're not gonna put data on it and you don't want to pay the extra for a velociraptor, get a single-platter 320GB drive instead; especially if this a stop-gap measure.
Click to expand...

I had the exact same thought last night, 640GB for a boot drive seems a bit OTT.
Although like everyone says, you get better performance out of it than the others, minus the Raptors. Basically I got the choice between the 640Gb or either the 150 or 300 VelociRaptor.

This could be my last upgrade for a while because the missus wants to move out next year, so all money will be going on that....I'm tempted to go with the Raptor seeing as that will give me enough space and decent performance to last a good 1-2 years whilst I save to move out
 
I'm leaning towards the 300GB Velociraptor at the moment, to get good space and good enough performance from my boot drive to last a while.

But I've just noticed OC sell two types, WD3000GLFS and WD3000HLFS. The only difference I've read is that the WD3000HLFS has backplane or something? Whats that?
 
Its so you can use it in a docking bay with a backplane. Such as the Icy Dock series. It means the sata ports are in the 'correct' positions on the back of the drive. If you intend to bolt in into a 3.5" bay, then get the other. Or the cheapest.
 
Right ok, understand now :)

That'll give me the 300GB Velociraptor drive for my boot drive, my existing boot drive WD3200AAKS I'll move to a secondary drive for downloads, and a WD5000AAKS for backup storage.....might seem odd using a hard drive for downloads but I want to keep anything that I download seperate from my main drives incase of any viruses etc....does that seem good idea?
 
I dont think it will make the slightest bit of difference. The virus will infect your system files and you installs. No matter where they are physically stored. But it does make sense from a speed view. Plus it keeps them seperate anyway.
 
I got a couple of 320 RE3 drives and have set them up in Raid 0. Partitioned it for the boot sector / OS sector then the rest is for games.

Other random files are just whacked onto a couple of 640 gb drives :).

Works well, Vista boots much quicker like this.
 
Corran said:
I got a couple of 320 RE3 drives and have set them up in Raid 0. Partitioned it for the boot sector / OS sector then the rest is for games.

Other random files are just whacked onto a couple of 640 gb drives :).

Works well, Vista boots much quicker like this.
Click to expand...

So keeping every other files except games & programs which are used by the OS does benefit the OS?
 
Well it stops the drive getting cluttered so there is a bonus there. But the speed boost comes from the Raid config more than anything else.
 
How do you think a Raid config would compare against one of the new 300GB Velociraptors
Had Raid in the past (with 2 74GB raptors) and was great, but had problems setting them up in Vista when it first appeared so sold them
 
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