Will Satat3 perform OK on an older MOBO?

Hoods · 24 May 2012

Night Hawk said:

If the Sata I drive you have likely being a 4,200 or 5,400rpm drive then the obvious improvement would be with one of the newer S2 or S3 drives likely being a 7,200rpm model. That plus the larger cache will do more performance wise and help eliminate the bottle neck you are running into with programs like Photoshop.

I can't get the Sata I drive out of my tower - it's royally stuck so I've just left it in there for now - to see what its speed is, or even what the model is to check - but, given its age and size (only 350GB), I am sure it's not 7200 and it could be as low as 4200. My other two drives (2x1TB) are both 7200, not sure what the cache size is, but I've never had a problem with bottlenecking on or between either of those. I don't really NEED a third drive, but with the number/size of files I have made it much easier to manage my system when I had it separate on the small HDD and had the 2x1TBs for data (just over .5GB) and various other files (slightly over 1TB). So, I will get a small Sata3 and put the system on that and go back to having plenty of space for my other stuff - it's just too tight on 2 drives. (At the moment everything is backed up onto a 3TB external.)

Night Hawk · 24 May 2012

I'm looking at adding a 5th internally if one of the WD Black edition model drive which would be 2tb or over in order to store multiple system images. The present Sata III drives are both 1tb and I now how fast those can fill up.

When going to price a 2tb drive the Sata II was higher then seen with the Sata III equivalent at one vendor. Newegg saw $200 for the S2 and about $180 for the S3 version!

Hoods · 24 May 2012

I have decided to go with a Hitachi 500GB Deskstar 7K1000.D for my W7 system drive - I won't even fill half that, with all my data on a separate drive. My 3GB external is a USB3 Hitachi Tuoro and it has not skipped a beat. You tend to go with a brand that's been good to you. Having said that, I've always used Seagate before, never tried WD.

I've never done the multiple system thing ... been tempted to try Linux just for the sake of it, but really, W7 has never given me a single problem and, other than advanced Photoshop, my usage is bog boring - no serious gaming, no Autocad or 3D design any more ...

Night Hawk · 24 May 2012

What 7 has proved itself over and over time again is that it is the most reliable version that MS has ever come out with except Vista while some of the differences are noticable between the two versions. Stability is the strong points on both however.

Linux is a different animal there. You have a few options available before trying to set up a dual boot with another OS like running a distro on a VM, burning a live cd or dvd depending on which Linux flavor, or a custom install to a usb flash drive without trashing the Windows mbr!

Besides any VM here I put a distro like ubuntu or Linux Mint Debian(replaced ubuntu earlier with LMD) on the second root partition of a usb flash drive seeing that made the "/ mount point" and the Grub boot loader installed to the flash drive not the Windows drive. The flash drive will then be a bootable medium with an OS of it's own.

For a first time the best idea is a cd or dvd rewritable disk to burn a live iso and boot live from disk before attempting any direct install. That way no changes to your drives are seen. No mess no fuss and a basic quick look at the other OS.

I believe you meant 3tb external for terabyte not 3gb there.

As far as brands Hitachi is a relatively new brand when compared to Seagate and Western Digital that both go way back! I tend to find Seagate runs higher pricewise while not being better or worse then WD.

Hoods · 24 May 2012

Night Hawk said:

For a first time the best idea is a cd or dvd rewritable disk to burn a live iso and boot live from disk before attempting any direct install. That way no changes to your drives are seen. No mess no fuss and a basic quick look at the other OS.

I believe you meant 3tb external for terabyte not 3gb there.

As far as brands Hitachi is a relatively new brand when compared to Seagate and Western Digital that both go way back! I tend to find Seagate runs higher pricewise while not being better or worse then WD.

I didn't even know that was possible!! I might give that a go!

TB, yes. :) I went with the Hitachi also because it was one of the few at a reasonable price with a 32MB cache and only 500GB. I figure if I do upgrade my system (unlikely at this point) having a good Sata3 drive is forward planning. :)

Night Hawk · 24 May 2012

A good number of the new and recent boards seen now are strictly Sata III no longer seeing Sata II ports on the board. That's likely why you are now seeing lower prices on S3 drives then with S2 since everybody will be buying the newer while the vendors still have to stock the older!

As for taaking a look at the other OS the best move for any first timer would be booting with a live cd-r. Ubuntu is the most popular being small but as small as some like Puppy Linux. Another distro with a live/live to install live dbd image that looks even better while larger would be Linux Mint.

A live cd can also serve another purpose at times many are not aware of. How about a data rescue stick using a live distro to custom install the other OS onto a usb flash drive for example. Using the "Other OS" For a USB Rescue Device?

The cautionary note is to also have the 7 dvd or repair cd containing the 7 repair tools onhand before ever attempting this in case you end up replacing the 7 mbr with Grub! Grub the other guy's boot loader has to be installed to the flash drive where two partitions are created not one as explained there. The second being the root//swap file system partition while the first much larger partition that Windows can see is formatted to NTFS.

If for some reason your present 7 installation won't load and you need access to files fast this is where something like this would have an application especially if the 7 main drive has to be wiped clean. Always sweep a flash drive with a security program following a data recovery if there is any indication of malwares however!

The guide there is mostly for the advanced user as one other thing to mention here. For now however a live cd would be the idea for the first look. A live cd can also be used the same way only not having any room to save files on the live disk itself.

Another guide for a one time small distro like ubuntu Knoppix now a large dvd sized release explains this. Computer First Aid Using Knoppix

As far as caches on drives the largest seen with any is 64mb like this Hitachi 4tb model. Newegg.com - HGST H3IK40003272SP (0S03355) 4TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

That's a wee bit too high on price right about now however! Another 3tb drive with a 64mb cache goes for far less try $170 seen at Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Too bad that wasn't the WD Black edition series for the Sata III drive there.

The 4 internal HDs are all Black Edition series 1tb drives while the 1tb in the external enclosure is a Green Power low perfomance series.

Here I knew I would need more drive space for the OS drive for various projects like VMs and video where drive space becomes a commodity. The 500gb should work out for you there however not likely to see anywhere near as much data on the main OS drive.

When planning out a new build or buying a new OEM machine then you would be more likely to look at all options available since you will be looking for a total cost on everything when going to upgrade. The larger cache mostly is for the larger capacity. 32mb is good for a 500gb.