How much faster would SATA be

[Lead Head]

Originally Posted by 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!

Well, I'm runnign an 80 Gig Seagate Baracuda 7200.1 IDE, and from power on to fully loaded with about 45 processes running. It takes around 30-40 seconds to boot windows, then another 10-20 to fully load my username.

[robodude666]

Originally Posted by Lead Head

Well, I'm runnign an 80 Gig Seagate Baracuda 7200.1 IDE, and from power on to fully loaded with about 45 processes running. It takes around 30-40 seconds to boot windows, then another 10-20 to fully load my username.

Yup, but why does it take so long? Is it because we use IDE drives? Or because we just have a lot of crap? Most people I talked to say it takes less than a minute to fully load windows XP. So odd =/

[gvblake22]

Don't compare windows boot times, it is totally irrelevant between two systems formatted separately. The only way to be able to compare boot times would be to image two hard drives with the same Windows install and time it that way. I've even seen my boot times change when I moved all my same hardware to a new case and accidentally plugged the SATA data cables for my drives into different SATA connectors (and it wasn't just the first boot that changed, it was forever changed).

Overall, the hard drive is easily the slowest component in your computer that is used regularly (unlike optical drives or floppy drives or something). Unfortunately, even though the drive technology has come a long way (faster spindle speeds, new recording techniques), they are still relatively slow. Until solid state drives or at least hybrid drives become available, even a 10,000rpm 150GB Raptor is going to be slow. :dontknow: