Speed differences between these two hard drives?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
G

geekscript

Reputable
Oct 12, 2015
2
0
4,510
Ok, so I built a desktop and didn't have a hard drive to use, so I decided to use my old xbox 360 hard drive. Turns out that the xbox hard drive is crap and is only SATA1, 5400RPM with 8MB buffer. I just ordered a new hard drive that is 500GB, SATA3, 7200RPM with 16MB buffer. I have bad loading times with my current hard drive and was hoping there is a big difference between the two hard drive, anyone care to clarify if there is a big difference?
 
Solution
G
Yes, there will be a significant difference beween the two drives. Betwen the SATA upgrade and the increased RPM, you will immediatley notice an improvement.

The 16MB cache is slightly lower than average (which is currently 64), but none the less you will still see a great speed boost.
Sort by date Sort by votes
G

glamdringfh

Dignified
Dec 23, 2013
2,993
1
14,960
Yes, there will be a significant difference beween the two drives. Betwen the SATA upgrade and the increased RPM, you will immediatley notice an improvement.

The 16MB cache is slightly lower than average (which is currently 64), but none the less you will still see a great speed boost.
 
Upvote 1 Downvote
Solution
Solandri

Solandri

Illustrious
Jan 4, 2012
4,919
98
39,240

It's impossible to say without knowing what the exact drives are. The fastest HDDs barely exceed SATA1 speeds and then only on sequential read/writes (not typical of a game). So that won't make any difference. Cache is also of questionable use unless you're re-loading the same data off the drive. And if that's happening in a game, the game would be better off just pre-loading that data into RAM. So it's probably already been optimized in a way that makes the cache useless.

7200 RPM vs 5400 RPM would seem to be a clear advantage but, it's affected by a larger factor - areal density. If a drive uses more low-density platters, there will be fewer bytes passing under the read/write heads each second even if it's 7200 RPM. e.g. If the 7200 RPM drive is using 360 GB platters, while the 5400 RPM drive is using 1 TB platters, then the second drive will actually have more than 2x as many bytes passing under the read/write heads each second. Higher RPM helps random access speeds, but not necessarily sustained transfer speeds.

The fact that your new drive is newer increases the chances it has higher areal density, but you be amiss to assume that's the case.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom