onefistedboxer

I'm considering picking up a raptor 74 or 150gb drive. I've got a reasonably fast computer but i get the impression from reviews ect. that a fast hard drive will noticeably improve everyday speed.

My question is how you guys think i should set up my new drive, can i easily transfer the operating system onto the new drive, or would i need to reformat, are there any other things i should take into account before buying?

Thanks for any help.

temeteus82

It's highly recommended that you install fresh copy of windows when you get another drive and you will start using it as boot drive. In all cases you need to format the new drive anyways so you can do it easily during the install of windows. And do get the 150 Gb version of Raptor

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mkk

Those two old Raptor models are fairly noisy and depending on what drive you have to day it's very possible that just a brand new 7200rpm drive will give a good enough boost. For instance the Samsung 640GB and 1TB models are fast and appreciated for their noise signature. Giving you lots of storage space for the same money too.

And how much RAM does the system have? Having extra RAM is definitely a factor that improves performance in most situations.

onefistedboxer

Its strange you said that, as i am currently considering putting some bids on ebay, and hard drives and ram are my main targets, I'm running 2gb of ddr2 at 800mhz, and i started looking at some faster ram to handle my overclocked cpu, however there are also some good priced 4gb kits, i'm hoping it might just be a question of betting low on various products and hoping for a bargain. I'm only running vista 32bit, however.

The reason i was looking for a 74gb raptor, is mainly price and age, they are going for pretty low prices and as a drive designed to run 24 hours a day i'm hoping that they will be fine second hand.

If i do get a raptor how do you guys organise your drives, what would you keep on each drive and what role does raid play?

temeteus82

If you are going to RAID configuration you need to have two identical disc's since RAID configuration needs identical drivers.

RAID - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In RAID you don't need raptors any 7900 rpm drive in RAID is fast enough to be fast enough for you needs.

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OldBuzzard

Since you are running VISTA, get as much RAM as you can. Because you are running 32 bit, 4GB ram would be your max. If you were on 64 bit, then you could go to 8GB like I did. Also, use a 4GB Flash drive in READYBOOST. That will allow Vista to use SUPERFETCH more efficiently, and will speedup your loading times for the applications you use most often.

Even with 2GB, use the flash drive in READYBOOST, and you WILL see an improvement.

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When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

onefistedboxer

What would you guys recommend, going for an extra 2gb of 800 mhz, or replacing the 800mhz with 2gb of faster ddr2?

Also is it generally advisable to use identical ram in one pc, i realize that it must be identical for dual channel.

temeteus82

Well I have 4 gig of ram two kits of 2 gig and they are from different brads and they all work in dual channel configuration. But if you wan't OC ram you need identical kits. btw. now days there are 4 gig kits of ram
What mobo you got?

Anyway if you use 32-bit OS with 4 gig of ram installed you will not have full 4 gig of RAM in use since the OS will have maximum of 4 gig of memory address space, so it will map the video cards ram in to the maximum of 4 gig. So if you have video card with 512 Mb of VRAM you just do the math. 4096-512=3584 So in the end you would have total of 3.5 gig of RAM in use for OS.

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H3X4D3C1M4L

Man screw those first generation Raptors. Get a VelociRaptor (or two). Now THAT will skyrocket your system's performance into new galaxies.

onefistedboxer

I'm using a p5wdh deluxe, and my gfx card has 512mb of ram. I have considered getting an extra 1gb of memory in two 512mb dimms but im not sure that it will be that much cheaper than 2gb anyway, will i notice much performance increase from the extra ram?

Can i also check about the relationship between cpu overclocking and ram. I'm currently overclocking my e6750 to 3ghz, by upping the frontside bus to 375 from 333. I can then select the speed of my ram which is 750, do i take it that even after selecting the speed of my ram it is still having to work harder due to the overclocked fsb. I have noticed, for example, that i have to relax the memory timings to get the pc to run at this speed.

Edit: I've put my specs in so its easier for you to check everything.

procupine14

yeah you will notice a performance boost especially in VISTA with extra RAM that is for sure. Too bad you only have the 32-bit though. But really in all reality 3.5GB of RAM isn't bad at all

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HTPC/file server: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom x4 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 800 (2x2GB) - 1TB WD Black - 4 x 1TB Hitachi DeskStar in RAID 5 - ATi TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner - HIS Raedon 4850 512MB - ASRock N68C-S UCC mobo - OCZ ModExtreme Pro 500W PSU

GF's Gaming PC: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 1066 - 500GB Western Digital GP - HIS Raedon 5770 1GB - ASUS M3A78-EM - Zalman 650W PSU

Media Streamer: Win 7 Pro 64-bit - AMD Athlon x2 3200+ - 4GB SuperTalent DDR2 800 - 250GB SeaGate Barracuda - MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 - ASUS Raedon 5450 SILENT - FSP group 250W PSU

onefistedboxer

To be honest im not too concerned about having 32bit as 64 is still not completely mature yet, the main thing is whether to invest in speed or capacity. Getting back to hard drives, at least the raptors would be a reasonably solid long term investment, whilst ddr2 is already becoming obsolete, as Intels next processors will only support DDR3.

Also can you mix and match ram of different speeds, so for example if i put some 8500mhz ram with my 6400, (obviously not using a 6400 and 8500 in dual channel together) would this just underclock the faster ram, and would they all have the same timings.

The reason i ask is that 2gb of 8500 is only £7.00 more expensive than 2GB of the 800mhz which i already i have.

Judas

Just to clarify.

the raptors are highly overrated... imo

Seagate 7200.11's outperform them in just about every way....

Another fact is that

Raid 0 doesn't REQUIRE the drives to be identical in any way or form, hell the make/models don't have to be the same, size or even speeds.

I can take a sata1 5400 rpm 120gb 2mb cache drive and pair it up with a 500gb 32mb cache sata 2 7200rpm drive and get raid 0 working... the only problem is that why would you do this?

Cause what happens is that the smallest drives total size, is the deciding factor on the total array size. You essentially end up with a 240gb hardrive. And you speed gained would be marginal at best.

Generally recommended to get identical drives though. But not a nessesity. WD 320gb + Seagate 320gb + Hitachi 320gb work in raid 0 exceptionally well.

4gb is top choice is possible.... but moving to windows vista x64 would be a nessary step first

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onefistedboxer

I've looked into getting a second of my t166 320gb Samsung drives which only cost about £35.00, would this give me a significant increase in performance over one drive (in addition to the extra capacity) and how would it compare to one raptor? I take that raid 0 would be the way to go.

Also is this a problem to set-up without a dedicated card, my mobo has dedicated raid functions on it. How does a raid array look on your pc, does it morph them into one drive, or can you see them individually?

Thanks for all the help!!

By the way am i right that 64bit Vista is free if you have purchased the retail 32bit version, but not if its an OEM edition.

Judas

Depending on the chipset on your motherboard... intel has one of the best raid chips i've every used And perform exceptionally well, moreso they are less troublesom as getting add in cards working well.

2 smaller drives in raid 0 on a good intel ich9r chipset will usually always way outperform a single larger drive.

and yes when in raid 0, the system will see it as a single LARGE drive

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onefistedboxer

Having done some extra research the vast majority of benchmarks reveal virtually no extra performance in raid 0 for real world non-server applications, have i got the right idea?

Judas

it varies..

synthetic and actual results differ greatly, and it's hard to get real world results that apply to your situation.

a number of people will say there is a definite difference. other not..

i can say that doing specific tasks, some games REALLY see a major boost..

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onefistedboxer

Thanks for the response, but can you show me any evidence to support this, so far alot of respectable sites seem to be suggesting the opposite.

Judas

it's kinda hard to suggest....

An example of something would be

LineageII, loading the game and moving into new areas has dramatically increased load times

Fraps, Recording video on the fly in the raw format that fraps uses results in substatial improvement in not only performance but recording with less dropped frames and potential to record at higher resolution at faster frame rates

video editing, pretty apparent there.

Quite a number of the sites i've seen do tests i've always found that they went around doing it perhaps the wrong way or looking at it improperly..

Rawr READ/Write speeds are considerably increased, if they have improved, there has to be an advantage.

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Ascii2

Transfering operating system and data is quite easy.

I normally use Kroll Ontrack Disk Manager 10.46 for that purpose. A new hard disk may be formatted and operating system and data may be written to the new hard disk from the older hard disk.

The new hard disk may then be used with the operating system that was on (and would still be on) the older hard disk with all other data that was on the older hard disk.

All files on the new hard disk would be on the outermost portion of the platters (upon completion of the operating system and data copy (for optimal access times).

Other similar software exists.