Barracuda 7200.10 best thing to Raptors

Ronaldo

Ronaldo

Ronaldo

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Hi guys looking for a fast hdd and saw/heard loads of good stuff about
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache

now my mobo has sata2.

i want good performace when playing/loadinf games and windows

if i partition it will i lose performace?
what i mean is have windows on Vista on C: and D: storage. I'm thinking as the disk spins it will skip the partition part so it will slow the performace a little?

please correct me lol

Thanks
 
Having a disk partitioned will not increase seek time etc.

The best performance you'll get from the Seagates is a pair in RAID 0. Consider 2x160 GB over the 1x250.
 
NP well the Seagates with 16MB Cache are still the fastest drives apart from Raptors which TBH are simply not worth the price.
 
cheers mate

"i'm lead to believe that partitioned hard drives run slower that non-partitioned ones (makes sense).

the *hard drive* runs the same speed regardless. multiple partitions are considered less efficient to the *OS*, due to increased overheads in managing multiple partition tables, and additional seek requests sent to the drive.

"

just read that somewhere wondering if its true
 
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The problem with partitioning comes more if you are trying to read/write from different partitions at the same time when it will slow up a bit, I don't know for certain but unless you are talking a huge amount of partitions I'd be pretty sure the effect on speed is almost negligible from the partition tables apart from in benchmarks possibly.

The benefits of partitions come reformat time etc can outweigh the possible downsides though so think about it. I don't run partitions personally but that is simply because they aren't that useful for me and the way I use my PC. :)
 
I remember someone telling me that if you're going to fill the drive with loads of stuff (Ie. a 500gb drive, with say, 20% free) you would be better off partitioning it.

This is based on data being organised on hard disks like CD's, the start of the drive stars on the inner edge, and the last bit of information (should) be stored on the very outer edge.

Its because of fragmentation, if a file consists of 2 chunks of data, on a single partition, the head may have to move from the inside of the disk, to the outisde (in extreme cases), however, if its partitioned, say, 40gb primary partition, and 460gb secondary, windows would remain in that primary partition and the head wouldn't have to move that far to grab the information becasue of the way the information is organised (like a spiral) it would only have to move from the inside the disk, to maybe a little further out.

This is what I've head, and admittibaly, I may even be a bit biasd, I've got a 200gb Maxtor split into 1 40gb Fat32 pertition, and another Ntfs 150gb partition.
 
Strider said:
Its because of fragmentation, if a file consists of 2 chunks of data, on a single partition, the head may have to move from the inside of the disk, to the outisde (in extreme cases), however, if its partitioned, say, 40gb primary partition, and 460gb secondary, windows would remain in that primary partition and the head wouldn't have to move that far to grab the information becasue of the way the information is organised (like a spiral) it would only have to move from the inside the disk, to maybe a little further out.
Click to expand...

Basically correct. Which is one partial reason why on some other operating systems swap space and also sometimes the temp folder tends to be given a dedicated partition. Doing so instantly gurantees a contiguous area of disk for swapping to, typically also in the fastest part of the disk, and also means that temp files will not cause undue fragmentation by being interspersed with more permanent files on the disk.

Similarly it is possible (though not exactly easy) in Windows to install Windows on its own partition and then with Program files and Documents and Settings on seperate partitions. I've found this to apparently improve performance (presumeably similarly by reducing fragmentation due to data files being intermingled with internet and other temp files over time) when I tested this type of setup some time ago. Whether it's ultimately worth the bother is debateable and probably depends on how you use your PC.
 
Aren't the Western Digital AAKS drives meant to be faster than the 7200.10s, but with a little more noise? The only draw back is that they start at 500GB

According to this thread the new Hitachi drives are supposed to be even quicker (and quieter) but again these drives do not come in the smaller sizes yet :(
These ones are 200GB per platter as opposed to the 160Gb per platter of the other drives so have a higher data density and thus higher read write speeds.
I want them to bring out a 200GB version soon. :)
 
Ronaldo said:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache

if i partition it will i lose performace?
Click to expand...
Hi,

I just ordered a 400GB 7200.10 so will let u know when it arrives. Currently running a pair of Hitachi T7K500's, very nice drives but their not quiet enough to run in my uber quiet PC, its not the seeks that are noisy but the 'idle' hum.

I was originally gonna order the 7200.10 but then I checked these forums and a few people were complaining about it being noisy.

I think partitioning is a good idea, helps prevent fragmentation, makes backing up easier (its easier to backup a 40GB Windows installation than a 400GB!!) and I hazard a guess it would improve seek times a bit.
 
The $6m Dan said:
Aren't the Western Digital AAKS drives meant to be faster than the 7200.10s, but with a little more noise? The only draw back is that they start at 500GB

The AAKS is available in smaller sizes too....I have the 320gb one in my pc.
Nice and quiet as well as fast!
Click to expand...
 
Bito said:
The $6m Dan said:
Aren't the Western Digital AAKS drives meant to be faster than the 7200.10s, but with a little more noise? The only draw back is that they start at 500GB

The AAKS is available in smaller sizes too....I have the 320gb one in my pc.
Nice and quiet as well as fast!
Click to expand...

So they are. Thanks for the heads up. :)
They're only a few pounds more than the 250GB drives as well.
Click to expand...
 
The Seagate units are probably the ones to go for at the moment.
Sure, you could go for a Raptor and experience a boot time 2-3 seconds quicker.
Sure, you could go for a Raptor and experience slightly quicker load times in applications and games installed on the said drive - well until y our system has cached things anyway.
However at the same time you could buy Raptor drives and experience the noise they make...oh and the fact that you really need to ask yourself "Are those few seconds I save myself worth the fact that I can have double the storage capacity at less than half the price if I go for the Seagates?"

No brainer really.
 
Used 150GB Raptor, switched to 500GB 7200.10 - better value for money who gives a toss about a couple of seconds. . .
 
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