Back in my XP days I was a HDD speed nut to the point I averaged all the data files on my HDD by size and picked a cluster size that best matched my data's size for that much better read and write speed. I even utilized the SATA I connectors in my Dell Dimension 4600 for better throughput.

I upgraded everything in that computer except the motherboard. Hard drives, GPU, PSU, CPU, RAM and a 5.1 Creative sound card for my surround sound that I still use to this day. It was my little workhorse and it ran Call Of Duty Modern Warfare quite well in about circa 2008. Some of the mods were really taxing my CPU though. The CPU was the highest speed I could use on the motherboard at about 3.0 GHZ. It was a Pentium 4 Northwood CPU. I still have it to this day.