HD Suggestion and problem

[Vric]

Hi,

I had a 160gb SATA Western Digital drive and I wanted to get a second drive for Windows and security. I then got a Seagate 7200.9 SATA2 80gb drive.

Now, I feel it a bit slow. Windows loading, file browsing seam slow..

I have a way to get nearly the full line of WD drive at good price (beside the Raptor 74 and 150)

First question: What do you suggest to improve the speed of my main partition. Since I have critical file on this drive, I don't really like the Raid0 idea (might be a better idea for second hd) Should I go with the 36gb Raptor (even if it's quite old now) or get something else (160gb or more)
I don't really need extra space (I currently use 15gb of my 80 drives) but I want speed.

Second question: I installed HD Tach software to see the performance of my drives.

Seagate 7200.9 SATA2 80gb
13.6ms
59.7mb/s
128.0MB/sec

Western Digital 160gb SATA
20.3ms
52.7mb/s
124.2MB/sec

Look like the drive isn't that slow (but it feel slow when browsing file !) But what is the 20.3ms of the WD drive ? this is terrible !!

Thanks for your help and recommendation.

[SpeedDMN]

since you seem to be more interested in speed then space the 36g raptor might be a good choice. If you were to create a raid 0 array as a boot drive you could still keep your important files on a seperate storage drive.

[Vric]

Thanks for the reply

What hold me to get the Raptor (so far) is the updated bench. From what I see, the 36gb is now slower than most 200gb drive, beside the access time.

And since the Raptor 36gb is the same price as the 320gb SATA drive, I'm confused. As I said, I don't really mind the extra space, but if I get better performance from this drive, there is no point to get the Raptor (beside the "cool factor")

Thanks for your help.

[Vric]

I looked for the 20.3ms access time of my WD drive. The AAM is disable. I have no other clue what' going on.

[El Wiseguy]

Well, he told you to run them in Raid 0. Just try getting some extra 74gb Raptors and run them in Raid 0. You won't get much faster than that.

[Vric]

Originally Posted by El Wiseguy

Well, he told you to run them in Raid 0. Just try getting some extra 74gb Raptors and run them in Raid 0. You won't get much faster than that.

Like I said in the first post:
I have a way to get nearly the full line of WD drive at good price (beside the Raptor 74 and 150)

If I could get the 74gb at good price, I would surely get it. But I can only get the 36gb version, and I'm really not sure if it's still as fast at it was. (hd did improve the last 2 years..)

[Andy2]

If you can get a good price on the 36gb raptor that would be a good choice. The access time can make a big difference in actual use if you are dealing with a lot of small files. That makes it a good choice for the os drive. A lot of bench tests only look at large sequential transfers which has nothing to do with how the os works. The price per gb is high on this drive but if you don't need the space it doesn't matter.

[Vric]

Thanks for the reply. I will take a look at it then. I can have it for $70 brand new (with full warrenty). But same price for the 320gb drive

Last question, anyone have an idea why my WD 160gb have such an horrible access time ? 20.4ms is insane (and AAM is inactive)

[wonderwrench]

Something smells fishy. What are you running for anti virus software.
Some anti virus programs kill hard drive performance Antivir comes to mind.
Try disabling your AV program and see if it helps. I know when I tested Antivir about a year ago HD performance dropped by about 50%.

How many processes are running on startup, have a look in task manager.
If your much over 35 processes your system will start to feel lazy.
I try to keep my systems trimmed to 30 or less.

Oh and I take it defraging your drives has not helped?

Malware could cause a system to feel slow. Use a online scan like
trend house call just to be sure its not a malware problem.

[Vric]

Hi

thanks for the reply.

I have Symantec Antivirus Corporate 10.

Defrag was made last week.

There is no virus, no spyware. Computer is clean.

I tried desabling the anti-virus, same thing.
I tried in Safe mode. Everything is super slow (normal driver not loaded) but it's still 20.7ms (move from 20.3 to 20.7)

[Andy2]

The raptor would be faster but the extra 284gb of storage for the same price would be hard to pass up. Is both a possibility. A raptor for the os and that 320gb for storage.

[Vric]

Originally Posted by Andy2

The raptor would be faster but the extra 284gb of storage for the same price would be hard to pass up. Is both a possibility. A raptor for the os and that 320gb for storage.

Could be yea. or another 160gb and I make the Raptor for the Os, and 2x160gb Raid0. for other things.

My sensitive data (business wise) is about 3gb. All the rest is not a drama if something goes wrong. (well a drive failure is always a drama, but I'm a guy than make lot of backup and don't leave stuff there for infinite time.)

It's all possible option.. It's hard to choose