What would perform better?

[twbg4cq]

What would perform better?

10,000 RPM HDD using SATA 1.5 Gbps

or

7,200 RPM HDD using SATA 3.0 Gbps

 

[tecmo34]

Can you say which Western Digital Raptor capacity and 7,200 HDD you are review?

 

[rand_79]

perform better at what? the epeen sequential transfer or regular use?

 

[twbg4cq]

Can you say which Western Digital Raptor capacity and 7,200 HDD you are review?

The 10,000 rpm Western Digital Raptor has 74GB with 8MB of cache. Here's a link to it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144160&cm_re=wd740gd-_-22-144-160-_-Product

The 7200 rpm is a Hitachi with 500GB and 16MB of cache: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822147007

 

[twbg4cq]

perform better at what? the epeen sequential transfer or regular use?

As an OS drive running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
My 74GB no longer has enough space for all the programs/games I want to put on it.

 

[tecmo34]

The Raptor is the better performing drive, though limited on space compared to the 500GB drive.

 

[twbg4cq]

The Raptor is the better performing drive, though limited on space compared to the 500GB drive.

Exactly. The space is no longer sufficient, and I can't justify getting an SSD yet.

 

[tecmo34]

If you want to upgrade, the Samsung Spinpoint F4 320GB will match or beat the Raptor, outside of access times, in performance.... Specially at such a low price (under $45 US dollars).

 

[twbg4cq]

Best answer selected by twbg4cq.

 

[photonboy]

Hard drives rarely read files at the maximum read speed. Even though the 1.5Gbps interface can technically be maxed out by a really good hard drive in reality it's not that big a deal.

For example, a drive my read LARGE files at 160MB/second but be limited by a 150MB/second interface. However, when loading games etc the files on average may load at only 30MB/second due to the smaller sizes (the physical delays or seek times add up so the lower the file size on average the lower the average read speeds).

So if SPEED is important, you can basically ignore the interface for a single drive and get the fastest drive.

Personally I have:
1) Vertex 2 SSD (for Windows and apps)
2) 2xRAID0 WD 1TB Black hard drives (for games; using the Intel ICH0 raid)

 

[twbg4cq]

If you want to upgrade, the Samsung Spinpoint F4 320GB will match or beat the Raptor, outside of access times, in performance.... Specially at such a low price (under $45 US dollars).

Although it's tempting, I think I'll save the $45 and put it towards an SSD later this year when prices drop (hopefully by a substantial amount) and performance is better.