Dell Studio 540 (what is a good )1TB 64mb cache 7200 RPM HD Master HD

[jjr]

I purchased a 1tb HD I just installed is a WD av-gp wd10eurx Green Drive green drive that me really made for storage (photos, pix' and music etc) I guess it spins a different speeds to save on electricity, by mistake .....

What is the correct HD that I can use for my master drive??



It gets confusing with the NAS, Red, Blue etc logos on these. I can not afford a SSD or I do not think that benefits of a hybrid drive due to the cost.

I'm just looking for a 1tb hard drive that can be used for a master HD application that has a 64mb cache and spins at 7200 rpm....................

 

[ICIT2LOL]

JJR mate try one of the Seagate hybrids I just installed one for my partners daughter and it combines the ability of an SSD with a big spinner and at a fraction of the cost.

It has kept up witht straight SSD's I already have - just about of course the top end stuff it won't but an ordinary spinner - no contest

I don't know what they cost in the US but I got a 1TB for $129 out here .

One point I did track down defragging with these drives and it is a no no.

Try Newegg and see what they quote.

 

[jjr]

Please explain about the defragging?

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Please explain about the defragging?

Now very simply JJR the SSD is a solid state device something along the lines of the chips that make up the RAM and even the CPU. See this Solid-state drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia & this form that link Wear leveling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It follows that during the normal life of a drive the wear would take a long time and it is widely accepted that defragging an SSD merely adds extra wear when it doesn't need it. My self I cannot remember when I last defragged a drive and as nearly all my drives are now SSD's I do not defrag at all.
I also found out from Seagate who make their own hybrid drives do not recommend defragging.

If you are not sure on how to disable defrag then see this. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11728-optimize-windows-7-a.html < point 11 the rest of the tutorial is absolutely in my mind a must to get the most out of your equipment.

 

[KYWD]

Hi jjr,

Good choice with WD. I don't think there's is "correct" hard disk in terms of primary drive for either PCs and laptops. It all depends on the preferencies of each person. If you'd like to use it for general everyday activity, I would recommend this WD Blue: WD Blue The model type that has the exact same specifications that you're looking for WD10EZEX.

Regarding your second question, I wouldn't recommend SSD defragmentation, because it will reduce the SSD’s lifespan by unnecessarily writing data to it. Here's a link explaining whole thing with HDD defragging and the SSD specifics: Tech Talker : Should You Defragment Your Hard Drive? :: Quick and Dirty Tips ?

Hope that I helped.

KY_WD

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Yes KYWD while I don't agree that WD is the better brand drive and that no drive is preferable over another for booting purposes for example simply because an SSD beats any spinner hands down in my experience. Not using a double drive for boot (SSD) and then a spinner for data backup and storage I do agree it is a personal choice.

As for the defrag issue on SSD's there has been much discussion on that subject in this forum and defragging is generally accepted as a no no. I stand to be corrected but Windows on install picks up any drive if it is an SSD and disabling defrag is a must.

I would go even further and say that is true of the new hybrid drives like I recently posted about and got verification from Seagate tech support (my own preference in drives) that even those should not be defragged.

As it stands I have just installed one of those drives in my partners daughters machine and it has shown to be only marginally slower than a full SSD. I am shortly to install a 1TB hybrid on my partner's machine and it will be very interesting to se how it performs as I know the exact timings for booting and hopping from program to program etc etc on the old drive.
Another plus for hybrids is that they are a fraction of the cost of a full SSD by size / space but admittedly more costly than a comparable plain spinner.

But you have your opinion as anyone is entitled to but I wonder if you have tried an SSD for booting and / or general use

 

[KYWD]

Hi ICit2lol,

I wasn't saying that the hybrid drives are a bad choice. I saw jjr already had WD hard drive, that's why I decided to provide some guidance. After all you're right, it all depends on one's personal preference.

KY_WD

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hi ICit2lol,

I wasn't saying that the hybrid drives are a bad choice. I saw jjr already had WD hard drive, that's why I decided to provide some guidance. After all you're right, it all depends on one's personal preference.

KY_WD

No mate I wasn't hinting you were either - I have only just stumbled over these type of drives after seeing they come in very thin format (sizewise) and I was about to replace the old drive for her with a SSD but again the price and the drive's performance made me try one out and to be honest it is the bee's knees for booting from and larger capacity wise than the SSD I was considering.

 

[Imrankhan]

Seagate Barracuda Desktop ST1000DM003. This meets your requirements. 64MB Cache spins at 7200rpm.
WD Blue too have 64MB cache and 7200rpm drive(WD10EZEX Model).
You may go WD Black models like WD1003FZEX,WD1002FAEX for this.

But note that there wont be any significant differences between them. They all are spinning drives reading and writing data to Magnetic Tapes. Read speed and write speed vary a little.
In my case, If I want a drive I would goto store buy the one that fits my budget and also have a good name in the market. Blue one you chose is not a bad disk too.

 

[jjr]

So should I just stick with the new green drive I purchased in the first place???

My issue is that when I playing music and browsing/email at the same time, some times the music freezes/lags for a sec and I get a quick buzz sound. My thought that my original 120gb hd w/8mb cache was not big enough and causing the problem. I since then upgraded the PC to 8gb matched ram and installed the larger green drive w/ the larger cache.

Well it was working fine for a few days and started up again. It seems to go away for awhile if I delete my browsing history (Google Chrome) , run CC cleaner then restart the PC. Also I noticed that on my sys restore I had that only at 10% I not increased that to 100%.

I will not be back at the PC till tomorrow afternoon to see if that made a difference.

So what I thought could possibly still be causing that is when I read the specifications on the green drive saying that it does spin at different speeds under different applications that could be causing the lag/buzz.

I have done a lot of searching on the web on this and it seems that I'm not the only person with this issue (running Win7 64bit home) and using the WMP as well as tried using the Cowon MP which did work somewhat better but the issue was still there.

At one point I had all my music on my slave drive with a shortcut to my desktop that seemed to make the issue eve worse, since then i moved all my music to my master drive.......

Sorry to go off a bit but this has been driving me nuts

Seagate Barracuda Desktop ST1000DM003. This meets your requirements. 64MB Cache spins at 7200rpm.
WD Blue too have 64MB cache and 7200rpm drive(WD10EZEX Model).
You may go WD Black models like WD1003FZEX,WD1002FAEX for this.

But note that there wont be any significant differences between them. They all are spinning drives reading and writing data to Magnetic Tapes. Read speed and write speed vary a little.
In my case, If I want a drive I would goto store buy the one that fits my budget and also have a good name in the market. Blue one you chose is not a bad disk too.

 

[Imrankhan]

Also make sure that your PSU is enough to handle all your HDDs. Post PC specs please.

Disk Defragment : (in short) Assembling files in the Harddisk in a specific order for faster data access. System files placed near the beginning of drive. Files thats are stored in fragments(data scattered here and there) will be brought together.

 

[jjr]

dell Studio 540
CPU- Core2 Quad Q8300 2.5

8gb ram win7 64bit will get more details tomorrow

1tb master hd
2tb slave hd (both green drives) 64mb cache

 

[jjr]

dell Studio 540
CPU- Core2 Quad Q8300 2.5

8gb ram win7 64bit will get more details tomorrow

1tb master hd
2tb slave hd (both green drives) 64mb cache

Hope this is what you needed?

Computer Model Studio 540
BIOS Vendor Dell Inc.
BIOS Version 1.1.3
BIOS Date 8/25/2009
OS Version Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Processor
Manufacturer Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q8300 @ 2.50GHz
Clock Speed 2.5Ghz
L2 Cache Size 4096
Memory
Available Memory 68.37 %
Page File Size 16,312.5MB
Available Page File 96.76 %
Virtual Memory 16,312.5MB
Available Virtual Memory 81.94 %
DIMM1 2,048.0MB
DIMM3 2,048.0MB
DIMM2 2,048.0MB
DIMM4 2,048.0MB
Network Card
Adaptor Description
Adaptor Description
Storage
Drive C:
Type 3
Drive Size 931.4GB
Total Available Space 476.9GB
Used Space 454.5GB
Drive D:
Type 3
Drive Size 1,863.0GB
Total Available Space 1,345.0GB
Used Space 518.0GB
Drive E:
Type 5
Drive Size
Total Available Space
Used Space
Drive F:
Type 5
Drive Size
Total Available Space
Used Space
Drive H:
Type 2
Drive Size
Total Available Space
Used Space
Drive I:
Type 2
Drive Size
Total Available Space
Used Space
Drive J:
Type 2
Drive Size
Total Available Space
Used Space
Drive K:
Type 2
Drive Size
Total Available Space
Used Space
Hardware
Type Description
DVD/CD-ROM Drives HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GH50N ATA Device ASUS DRW-2014L1T ATA Device
Disk Drives WDC WD10EURX-63FH1Y0 ATA Device WDC WD20EZRX-00DC0B0 ATA Device Generic- Compact Flash USB Device Generic- MS/MS-Pro USB Device Generic- SD/MMC USB Device Generic- SM/xD Picture USB Device
Display Adapters Intel(R) G45/G43 Express Chipset Intel(R) G45/G43 Express Chipset
IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers ATA Channel 0 ATA Channel 1 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller ATA Channel 0 ATA Channel 1 Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
Keyboards,Mice & Pointing Devices USB Input Device
Monitors Generic PnP Monitor Default Monitor
Sound Devices USB Audio Device AnvSoft Virtual Sound Device High Definition Audio Device Bluetooth Hands-free Audio Intel(R) High Definition Audio HDMI
USB Controllers Intel(R) ICH10 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 3A35 Intel(R) ICH10 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 3A36 Intel(R) ICH10 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 3A37 Intel(R) ICH10 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 3A38 Intel(R) ICH10 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 3A39 Intel(R) ICH10 Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 3A3A Intel(R) ICH10 Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 3A3C Intel(R) ICH10 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 3A34

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok now you have the drive sorted some other things that will help the performance

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11728-optimize-windows-7-a.html

PS The 1TB hybrid I stuck in the partners machine cut the boot from 1 min 45 secs to 50 secs - in case you think of getting one in the future

 

[jjr]

Thanks for the tip,

My ram is maxed out, not really running any other programs, pc boots quickly. Everything working fine and quickly. The only and mean only issue is w/ the WMP when I'm playing music and browsing at the same time. I listed the issue above.

I have new hd's, new ram. All drivers are up to date to the best of my knowledge.

Ok now you have the drive sorted some other things that will help the performance

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11728-optimize-windows-7-a.html

PS The 1TB hybrid I stuck in the partners machine cut the boot from 1 min 45 secs to 50 secs - in case you think of getting one in the future

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Surprised the RAM is maxing out on a normal usage maybe you should try this

MEMTEST

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.htmlthis one you will need to make a bootable disk set the BIOSto optical (or USB if preferred) boot the machine and let it run for at LEAST 8 passes unless the errors come up straight away. Takes a fair time to completeand some leave it running overnight.

If you do get errors and have morethan one stick then you will need to test each one separately and maybe even inthe separate slots.

Try reseating the sticks first as it could be seeing a max total RAM yet only accessing half of it Just remember 8 passes minimum unless the red errors come quickly.

My other thought is there something running in the background you do not know about (malware)

 

[jjr]

When I mentioned my ram is maxed out I meant that I have the maximum amount of ram installed in the PC (8gb).


So that is not the issue, as I mentioned I did a search on this issue on the wed and it seems that a lot of people have the same issue but nobody has a fix?

Surprised the RAM is maxing out on a normal usage maybe you should try this

MEMTEST

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.htmlthis one you will need to make a bootable disk set the BIOSto optical (or USB if preferred) boot the machine and let it run for at LEAST 8 passes unless the errors come up straight away. Takes a fair time to completeand some leave it running overnight.

If you do get errors and have morethan one stick then you will need to test each one separately and maybe even inthe separate slots.

Try reseating the sticks first as it could be seeing a max total RAM yet only accessing half of it Just remember 8 passes minimum unless the red errors come quickly.

My other thought is there something running in the background you do not know about (malware)

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Sorry JJR - senility creeping in Mate I can't find that board anywhere and I am guessing like my old tester with a Q9650 in it the RAM is DDR2 so no issues there as I can only fit 4GB max.

Now it seems like the bleeding obvious but have you run these

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html< if necessary include the /f switch in the command line as per Option2 you also have the option of the /r switch too.

Any malware scans ? if not try these

http://www.superantispyware.com/

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/

ADW download frombleeping computer delete any rubbish found with the malware scans

this is good too and I only run the Emergency and Command Line scans though
Emsisoft Free Emergency Kit: portable malware scanner | Free removal of Viruses,Bots, Spyware, Keyloggers and Trojans

Another you can try and it will scan everything from power up and will not need Windows.

I am only suggesting these to eliminate them so we can further narrow it down to something.




PS Found this in case you have not seen it http://support.microsoft.com/mats/windows_media_player_diagnostic

 

[jjr]

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

C:\Windows\system32>

 

[Imrankhan]

Could you post the screenshot of Processes Tab in Task manager.
Maximize Task Manager and Take screen shot.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html