Would you rather have a faster sustained transfer rate or lower access seek time?

Kaiju · 23 Jan 2007 at 15:10

A generic 74GB Raptor with an average 65MB sustained transfer rate should have quicker access times than all SATA/PATA with <10,000RPM. What I was wondering though is does anyone think the overall performance of a SATA/PATA can make up for the lack of quicker access times by having a greater sustained transfer rate?

If so, then how much greater than 65MB do you think warrants such a compensation.

They are two completely different aspects of a drives ability, but i'm looking for personal views on the matter.

Captain Fizz · 23 Jan 2007 at 15:18

For an OS/Games drive - Seek time.
For a storage drive - Transfer speed.

Depends on what the drive will be used for.
(RAID5 for multiple peeps accessing different files for example)

rpstewart · 23 Jan 2007 at 16:49

Personally I'm more interested in transfer rates. I don't reboot that often so startup times aren't that important rather I'm more interested in things like thumbnailing large numbers of photos (25Mb TIFFs) which need long sustained reads.

Chingoo · 23 Jan 2007 at 17:44

Both are very usefull for a fast snappy computer. Hence why I only use 15k SCSI for my windows/Programs partitions

snowdog · 23 Jan 2007 at 22:07

I prefer transfer rate, a good defragged hdd wont seek that much and most games there days have everything in one huge .dat file (the games that i play anyhow), doesnt need much seeking, so i prefer read times...

joeyjojo · 23 Jan 2007 at 23:05

This is the current deliberation as I'm reformatting. It's in RAID 0 now, which gives slightly decreased seek times (13 compared to 9ms for example) but much greater sustained/burst speeds (think 316 MB/s burst and sustained about 100). Leaning towards raid atm.

Kaiju · 23 Jan 2007 at 23:11

joeyjojo said:
This is the current deliberation as I'm reformatting. It's in RAID 0 now, which gives slightly decreased seek times (13 compared to 9ms for example) but much greater sustained/burst speeds (think 316 MB/s burst and sustained about 100). Leaning towards raid atm.

Another thing to consider is stripe size. Couldn't a 16k stripe make Windows snappier to make up for the lowered seek/access times? Too many variables and a lack of evidence to support anything clearcut for me at the moment.

joeyjojo · 23 Jan 2007 at 23:30

Kaiju said:
Another thing to consider is stripe size. Couldn't a 16k stripe make Windows snappier to make up for the lowered seek/access times? Too many variables and a lack of evidence to support anything clearcut for me at the moment.

Might backfire and reduce sustained speeds

Kaiju · 23 Jan 2007 at 23:35

joeyjojo said:
Might backfire and reduce sustained speeds

LOL! Quite possibly mate. *Goes in search of some stripe reviews.*

matja · 25 Jan 2007 at 10:31

Only way really to find out, is to install your OS with different combinations of stripe size and benchmark your commonly-used programs or use a synthetic benchmark (*spit*). I did this when I setup my RAID-0 for games (I have far too much spare time) because its obviously essential that you can get the cool toys before everyone else when the map changes in Battlefield 2. :cool:

Kaiju · 25 Jan 2007 at 10:46

matja said:
Only way really to find out, is to install your OS with different combinations of stripe size and benchmark your commonly-used programs or use a synthetic benchmark (*spit*). I did this when I setup my RAID-0 for games (I have far too much spare time) because its obviously essential that you can get the cool toys before everyone else when the map changes in Battlefield 2.

What stripe did you find best with BF2?

joeyjojo · 25 Jan 2007 at 17:12

Kaiju said:
What stripe did you find best with BF2?

Tell us!!