Disk drive recommendation

[margrave]

I have a five-year-old HP desktop (i7-930 @ 2.8 GHz, 8 GB RAM, Windows 7).

The original 1.5 TB drive died two years ago, and the 1 TB replacement (WD1002FAEX) seems to be a slower drive. I want to buy a faster one to replace it.

The motherboard SATA interface is listed as 3 GB/s (4 ports available).

How can I judge the speed of the existing drive, and how can I determine that of a potential replacement?

 

[Layback Bear]

First thing to do is Google. You have a 7200 rpm hard drive.

Western Digital Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com

Then a little more Googling.

Western Digital WD VelociRaptor WD1000DHTZ 1TB 10000 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com

My personal recommendation would be to get a SSD and use the Drive you have now for data.

So members can be more helpful could you complete your system specs.
This tutorial by Brink should be helpful.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/180324-system-info-see-your-system-specs.html

This is not helpful.

Computer type PC/Desktop
OS None

 

[Mellon Head]

Here is the spec on the 1 TB drive you mentioned:

Untitled Page

The speed is listed as 7200 RPM.

If you really want to get your machine moving faster, pick up a 250 GB SSD and put Windows on it, and use the 1TB drive for storage.

This is a good choice:

SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 250GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-75E250B/AM - Newegg.com

An SSD will make a world of difference in the speed of your machine.

 

[margrave]

I've looked at that Velociraptor. I'm told it's fast, but it's pretty pricey at $400 for the 1 TB model. I could get by with the 500 GB model, but that's $300. I was hoping that performance drives would be cheaper by now.

I would even settle for the same drive I had originally. The one that died. It was faster than the new drive. But I don't know the model number. I was really hoping to find either that one or an equivalently fast drive. Surely not as fast as that Velociraptor, but better than what I have now.

As for SSD ... the Samsung 500 GB pro model is around $200. I can't squeeze into 250 GB. And I'm not certain about compatibility with this five-year-old computer.

I just want to restore the speed I once had, and wait on SSD until my next computer in a year or two.

 

[AddRAM]

Just get a Western Digital Black as Jack has suggested.

Oh my did he say to use Google :roflmao:

If your ports are only Sata 2 then that`s as fast as a hard drive will be, even a Sata 3 drive will only give you 3 Gbps.

It is what it is until you get a new board.

 

[margrave]

That drive he mentioned is the one I already have, the WD1002FAEX. The one I want to get rid of. I want my older, faster drive back! But I don't know what to look for. I have no model number, nor any other information about it.

 

[AddRAM]

Where is the old drive ? What happened to it ?

Trash can ?

A Western Digital Black or a Seagate Barracuda are really your only options if you don`t want to use an ssd, nothing will be faster, I would suggest a fresh install, it will feel like lightning again.

And max out the memory, it always helps to AddRAM

 

[AddRAM]

Also, have you defragmented the drive repeatedly until it gets done very quickly ?

Are you using Ccleaner daily ?

 

[margrave]

Reinstalling Windows won't help. The box got slower as soon as soon as the dead C: drive was replaced with the new WD Black (with a fresh Windows install).

And, yes, I'm defragged.

The second D: drive is a 500 GB model. It is much faster than the C: drive. Much. Files copy to/from that D: drive much faster than from C:.

Maybe that leads to the answer? I'll just copy everything from the 1 TB slow drive to the 500 GB faster drive (shedding around 150 GB of some disposable stuff from C:, in order to make what remains fit onto the 500 GB drive. Then that 500 GB will become the C: boot drive. And the 1 TB crap drive can become D: ... and it can be the repository for backups, and for stuff that can tolerate the slowness (such as videos). Speed: Yes. Price: Zero.

 

[bigmck]

Others have suggested this but you can get tons of speed for $50 with a 120 GB SSD. Only put Win 7 and a few programs that you use a lot on it and everything else on the HDD. You won't believe the difference.
Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SV300S37A/120G - Newegg.com

 

[margrave]

Can't fit in 120 GB. Nor 256. Just barely into 500 GB. I have 160 GB of piano library software, mostly digital audio. That's on top of everything else on the C: drive.

 

[Mellon Head]

You aren't reading what bigmck and others have been saying to you:

<snip> Only put Win 7 and a few programs that you use a lot on it and everything else on the HDD. You won't believe the difference.

You don't have to have everything on the C drive. A common strategy is to put only Windows on the SSD, and a few other small programs that you want to load very quickly, and put the bulk of your other programs and your data on the spinning drive. If you have a large piano program, put it on the spinning drive. It doesn't have to go on C. That way, you can buy a cheaper (smaller) SSD, get the high speed, and still have your spinning drive for storage for large programs and data.

 

[margrave]

Nope. The piano libraries benefit from speed. If I were to trouble myself with an SSD migration, they'd have to move to the SSD. And as I said earlier, it's not clear whether this computer can handle an SSD. Maybe my next computer will have one.

Now that I'm at home, I see that my D: drive is a 500 GB Seagate ST3500418AS. That's out of stock at most shops, but Seagate has the newer 500 GB ST500DM002 ($55 from Seagate) or the 1 TB ST1000DM003 ($60 from Seagate, $50 from Amazon). If these are as fast as their 5-year-old cousin, I'm sold.

 

[bigmck]

Nope. The piano libraries benefit from speed. If I were to trouble myself with an SSD migration, they'd have to move to the SSD. And as I said earlier, it's not clear whether this computer can handle an SSD. Maybe my next computer will have one.

You have an i7, that will handle a SSD. If it will handle SATA, it will handle a SSD. To give you an idea of how fast a PC boots with a SSD, when booting with a HDD you see four colored dots come up and join to form the Windows logo. With an SSD, you see the four dots, but it boots before you see the Windows logo. You could solve you speed problem with a few bucks spent.