10k and 15k RPM Hardrives

[Vitter]

So im looking at Seagate's (my favorite HD maker) selections of hard drives and I see 2 that really shine.

The 10,000 RPM models that have 4.7ms seek times and storage capacity of 37GB and 76GM ($150 and $275 respectively).

And the 15,000 RPM model that has a 3.6ms seek time and a storage capacity of 37GB for $262.

Im wondering if these improved seek times (compared to 8-9ms on 7200's) makes enough of an impact to warrant the upgrade. Im really not too concerned about the storage abilities because I don't store music/movies on my PC and I try to keep a maximum of 3-4 games on it at any one time.

Im looking for performance boosts to gaming, surfing, and multi tasking.

[Rbstr]

then those aren't your drives, they use a SCSI interfance and wouldn't even work in your comp.

Thougth if you have SATA connecters you can egt a Western Digital 10k RPM that beats those in the tast you require

[Vitter]

Well i'm always used SATA. Not sure at all what SCSI is. I'll go check out the Western Digital model.

The post was more of a question of whether 10k or 15k is worth the price.

[Electrofreak]

I am also a Seagate fan. I've always used them, never had a single problem with 'em and they are usually pretty quiet and good performers.

As Rbstr said though, the 10k Western Digital "Raptor" kind of has the corner in the high-speed SATA department right now, though I'm sure Seagate won't let them hold it for long.

Also, SCSI drives are pretty much like SATA, but cost more. I've just learned recently that SATA outperforms them as well.

Basically, if you are running a server or whatnot, 10k - 15k drives are worth it, but just for gaming, a 7200 will do you just fine. Faster drives will help you load up data into your RAM faster is all, or copy/edit files or share/transfer/recieve files better across a network or internet connection (if you are running a server that is). I would suggest buying 2 7200 RPM SATAs and running them in RAID. It will cost probably about the same as getting a 10k drive, and will be even faster (because it runs the drives in parallel). If you REALLY want to go nuts, get 2 Raptors and run them in RAID. That would be crazy!

[Sentrosi]

Raid 0 or Raid 0+1 configuration.

[Marsman]

While you would get a slight performance increase from 10K RPM and the lower seek times, it really isn't practical for general use unless you have a specific application such as real time capture of large screen resolutions (such as 1024x768 @ 30 fps) which would require a very fast drive to keep up with writing such large amounts of data. For general use, 7200 rpm drives are fine and offer greater total capacities.

[Cyanide]

Having a 10k+ rpm drive is pointless unless you're doing lots of file transfers all the time, or writting lots of large files. In your case, having the speed and bandwidth of those drives, with the usage you'll give them, would be like driving a single VW bug down a 12 lane highway at 30mph.

You could get more than double the storage space for less money and you'd never notice a difference in speed. Of all the things that make a difference in the speed of a computer (for general use anyway), the hard drive is probably the least important. If you want to improve your gamming performance, get more ram or a better video card.

[Vitter]

Thanks guys. I think i'll go with ElectroFreak's suggestion and just get another Seagate 120GB 7200 SATA drive and run it in a RAID configuration.

What's the difference between RAID 0 and RAID 0+1?

I only knew RAID 0, which uses both drives together for increased performance but increased risk of errors over other RAID arrays.

[Electrofreak]

Yeah, 'cause if one of the drives fail... you are screwed :-\
RAID 0+1 (from what I can remember) is like running 2 RAID 0 arrays in a RAID 1 array. Basically, you are running a striped array (RAID 0), along with another array that mirrors it (RAID 1). So, not only do you have the high speed of a RAID 0, but you have the reliability of a RAID 1 if one of your drives fail (because it just uses the working RAID 0).

Get it? So, take a RAID 0, and mirror that, and thats a RAID 0+1. This of course requires 4 drives or more (2 for the RAID 0, and 2 to mirror it as RAID 1). It gives you the nice read/write speeds of having a RAID 0, and coupled with the reliability of RAID 1. Expensive tho.

[HunterKiller]

intel is going to come out with 2 new mobos, Alderwood and Grantsdale. It will have matrix raid and a whole bunch of other stuff. Grantsdale [aka 915P/G] is the budget mobo whiule Alderdale [aka 925X] is the more moderate mobo.

Matrix Raid: for RAID,both Alderwood and Grantsdale use the Hi-Po chipset's new ICH6R south bridge,which builds on the RAID capability of the ICH5R. Dubbed "Matrix Raid", this fancy,new fangled addition will appeal to PC users who desire both the performance of striping and the security of mirroring. In a Matrix RAID configuration, you still use two drives to build your RAID,but you can now configure one portion of your array to mirror and anothe portion to do striping.

Courtesy of Maximum PC

[Rbstr]

Matrix raid according to the blurb up there imo will suck.

because now you have to worry about two driver doing parity and two drive reading at the same time not a good idea. You would also half your storage capasity.

Raid 5 is the way to go, a raid 0 stripping aray and then a parity drive (2x bigger, or two drives)

[Cyanide]

Actually, Raid 1 might be best in his case. He's not going to get 4 drives to run 0+1, he doesn't need to write a lot of large files, and he said he's not really concerned with having a lot of disk space. In that case, Raid 1 may be best because while it can slightly slow your write speed (unless you run 2 raid cards in duplex, which would be a waste of money in this case) and doesn't give you as much drive space, it offers great reliability because of the reduncancy and it also speeds up reads because the data can be read from 2 drives at once, just like Raid 0.

I would definately go with Raid 1, simply because you're not going to notice the decrease in write speeds and it provides better reliability, and increased read speeds, which means faster loading for your games.