Fast Hard Drive

Serverman · 27 May 2011 at 14:07

I am buildiing a PC and am looking for a fast hard drive to compliment for slower large storage disks (2 x 2TB). I am looking for the best (quickset) hard drive for booting and general PC use. As such size isnt really that important but I dont want to be spending silly amounts either and less than what a SSD would be. I have read about SSD's but wouldn't really know a great deal about them and they still seem expensive.

Therefore what is the best (speed wise) value conventional hard drive?

What is the best 60GB SSD for the money? (Presumably 60GB is big enough for general OS use and applications)

Any advice and opinions would be much appreciated. Thanks.

oliver2601 · 27 May 2011 at 18:23

I would adviser you get a Agility 3. It offers read speeds of at least 500MB/s and is large enough for me to install windows,small applications such as web browser, the complete adobe package, office 2007 and WOW (which is 20GB) I would really recommend it, as not only do you get fast boot times, but it really makes a difference to the noise at boot up (don't have to hear the HDD spinning away).

Serverman · 29 May 2011 at 20:55

oliver2601 said:
I would adviser you get a Agility 3. It offers read speeds of at least 500MB/s and is large enough for me to install windows,small applications such as web browser, the complete adobe package, office 2007 and WOW (which is 20GB) I would really recommend it, as not only do you get fast boot times, but it really makes a difference to the noise at boot up (don't have to hear the HDD spinning away).

Thanks for that. I suppose it depends how much I have left over from my build if I can afford a SSD.

If I went down the mechanical hard drive route (i.e cheaper option) is there any that are noticably faster than anything else or are they all just much the same (bar the green drives obviously).

oliver2601 · 29 May 2011 at 21:31

Serverman said:
Thanks for that. I suppose it depends how much I have left over from my build if I can afford a SSD.

If I went down the mechanical hard drive route (i.e cheaper option) is there any that are noticably faster than anything else or are they all just much the same (bar the green drives obviously).

It's said that the velociraptors are the fastest, although they are much more expensive than most hard drives, and make a lot more noise.

I'd recommend the Samsung F3... it's cheap and very reliable, so suitable to be put into raid 0.

Most 7200rpm hdds will be around the same data rate,

Serverman · 29 May 2011 at 21:39

oliver2601 said:
It's said that the velociraptors are the fastest, although they are much more expensive than most hard drives, and make a lot more noise.

I'd recommend the Samsung F3... it's cheap and very reliable, so suitable to be put into raid 0.

Most 7200rpm hdds will be around the same data rate,

Thanks. I may just make do with one of my old hard drives for the OS for now then and use my new 2 x 2TB for purely for storage. When the price of SSD's comes down a little I think I will then get one of those to replace my old hard drive for the OS.

oliver2601 · 29 May 2011 at 22:07

Serverman said:
Thanks. I may just make do with one of my old hard drives for the OS for now then and use my new 2 x 2TB for purely for storage. When the price of SSD's comes down a little I think I will then get one of those to replace my old hard drive for the OS.

Yeah, if you're really impatient then an SSD is for you. If not then you will see it as a waste of money

There's better things to spend your money on if you're on a budget

chaparral · 30 May 2011 at 09:26

Serverman said:
If I went down the mechanical hard drive route (i.e cheaper option) is there any that are noticably faster than anything else or are they all just much the same (bar the green drives obviously).

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 3TB is a very very fast mechanical hard drive

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-075-HI&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1955

Review here http://www.techeye.net/reviews/techeye-looks-at-hitachis-deskstar-7k3000-3tb-drive

oliver2601 said:
Most 7200rpm hdds will be around the same data rate,

No there not...one 7200rpm drive can be half the speed of another one

Even my old 10,000rpm 150GB raptor can only read/write at about 70MB/s