How much faster would SATA be

[screwballl]

its all a PITA the way they use the naming...like Intel and their PD line

[Quakindude]

You'll see a better boost from going from an 8Mb cache drive to a 16Mb cache drive than you will going from PATA to SATA. I personally wouldn't buy a PATA drive today as the technology, while not exactly old and slow, is getting long in the tooth. Just like I wouldn't recommend someone go out and buy a $250 AGP video card.

Plus, SATA drives are hot-swappable, if your PSU supports it, and do not require jumpers.

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by Quakindude

You'll see a better boost from going from an 8Mb cache drive to a 16Mb cache drive than you will going from PATA to SATA. I personally wouldn't buy a PATA drive today as the technology, while not exactly old and slow, is getting long in the tooth. Just like I wouldn't recommend someone go out and buy a $250 AGP video card.

Plus, SATA drives are hot-swappable, if your PSU supports it, and do not require jumpers.

Agreed. It is getting harder and harder to find modern motherboards that feature two PATA ports. Heck, the Mainstream Intel P965 chipset doesn't even natively support PATA devices! It is an old, dying technology and I highly suggest getting a SATA drive as well, just for ease of use and future proofness.

[Oldfatslob]

And as usual, everyone forgot to mention one of the larges boosts to hdd performance is in what you put on the drive and how it's formatted. For example, if you put large files, such as family pics, videos, and such, you would want the cluster size to be large like 4,096 bytes, and if you put mostly small sized files, 512 bytes might be more ideal. So, if you were to use another drive for storage of large files, then the larger cluster size would work faster, and for small files, then the smaller cluster size would be faster. It all depends on what you put on the drive.

[Tyreal]

Lastly, especially if you would like a little more storage on your primary drive and want to save some money, you might also want to consider other high-end 7200rpm SATA hard drives that are fast like the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 series drives. They have NCQ, a 16MB cache buffer, and perpendicular recording technology. When comparing the price per gigabyte on the 7200.10 Barracudas to the Raptor it is no contest. You really get so much more with a fast, high capacity 7200rpm drive than you do with a 10000rpm Raptor. But if you want the absolute best performance and size and price aren't of huge concern, then there is no other choice than to snag yourself a new 74GB or 150GB Raptor with 16MB cache.

Blake is correct (of course). A few years ago, I bought a 36 GB Raptor to serve as my primary drive, holding my OS and startup programs. It was pretty fast and my PC booted up faster. Today, the Seagate 7200.10 is simply the better choice. It may be a tad slower than the Raptor, but you are getting so much more space for your money.

In the end, if you have money to blow, get the Raptor. If you know you aren't going to be getting alot of money for a while, get the Seagate Barracude 7200.10.

Right now, I'm running the exact configuration that was mentioned earlier by Stix. I have a 7200.10 as a secondary drive and a raptor as a primary. It's hard to tell which is actually faster...and if I had the choice today to buy another hard drive, I would definately choose the 7200.10.

[wtcnbrwndo4u]

Originally Posted by Lead Head

PATA, is reported in MegaBytes per second, SATA1 is 150 Megabytes per second, and SATA2 is around 300 Megabytes per second. But they said 3Gigabites per second to make it sound REALLY fast

^ Yeah, that's true... I never really paid attention to that.

[Quakindude]

Originally Posted by Oldfatslob

And as usual, everyone forgot to mention one of the larges boosts to hdd performance is in what you put on the drive and how it's formatted. For example, if you put large files, such as family pics, videos, and such, you would want the cluster size to be large like 4,096 bytes, and if you put mostly small sized files, 512 bytes might be more ideal. So, if you were to use another drive for storage of large files, then the larger cluster size would work faster, and for small files, then the smaller cluster size would be faster. It all depends on what you put on the drive.

I know of no one outside of the corporate world and their horde that will be overly concerned with one or the other file size on a HDD. Much less be aware of the pros/cons or keep those respective drive letters in mind when installing programs or transferring files. Those that are concerned and go through the trouble of cataloging files vs. file format are atypical.

Using NTFS and 4kb clusters are preferred for the home user for one big reason. Performance. The down side to using the larger cluster size is that when data is written to the drive, if that particular chunk of data is only 512 bytes in size, the rest of that cluster is unused, giving the end user less space for storing data. If you format your drive using 512 bytes clusters though, you will experience a tremendous performance hit. I've used 512 Byte clusters before and I'll tell you this.

For anyone that recalls the days for compressed hard drives, just compare 4kb clusters to 512 byte clusters as your HDD performance before compression and then after. Remember how excruciatingly slow your drive was after compressing it? Going with 512 byte clusters is the about the same performance hit. For me, unacceptable.

Once going to a 512 byte cluster size, even for storing smaller files as you suggest, there's zero performance gain. Indeed, you will experience a significant slow down in performance overall. Gaining more disk space is the only advantage.

This article explains it much better for those that wish to learn more about it. NTFS and 4Kb clusters is what I recommend the typical computer user be concerned with.

[PrOLifIC_onE]

Also for drives or partitions that are solely for saving videos, particularly for HTPC recordings, the recommended cluster size is 64k.

[Quakindude]

Originally Posted by PrOLifIC_onE

Also for drives or partitions that are solely for saving videos, particularly for HTPC recordings, the recommended cluster size is 64k.

Good point. If it's a sole video only drive, like for family videos, DVD backups and TIVO, I use 32. But 64 wouldn't be too bad either come to think of it.

[robodude666]

I am sorry if I end up hijacking this thread, but I have a question about HDDs and the interface as well.

Right now I am running a Maxtor 80GB and 120GB ATA-133. Models are 6L080P0, 6Y120L0.
(I got the 120GB for free, and bought the 80GB because my other 120GB died on me and I need a new HDD ASAP)

In the future (few months), I want to upgrade to SATA to remove those bloody cables and hopefully try to get some more speed (I get like 30MB/s according to HD Tech on each drive.)

I have about 20GB total space left across both drives and I want to get one of the:
Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (Perpendicular Recording) ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
drives. But, I heard that the higher the capacity of the drive, the slower it will be. Is this correct?

The answer is probably yes (because similar was said previously)... but, do you think I would get good results if I use a 36GB or 74GB raptor (150GB is TOOO expensive) as my main drive, and use the 500GB to hold my games, music, po - erm, I mean other crap like school work.

Right now, it takes me about literally 5 MINUTES to start my computer. From the time I press the button, to the time when everything is loaded and the computer doesn't lag when I do something. I have about 50 processes running and they are all needed >_<;;

How much of a increase in speed, time decrease would I notice with the Seagate 500GB and raptor combo?

Thanks a lot!