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Performance differences on WDC blacks

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - Performance differences on WDC blacks

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skywalk   09-02-2009 at 03:16:22 AM

Hi folks.

Pls correct me if i'm wrong: for the WD caviar blacks....

640gig = 2x320 platters
1tb = 3x333 platters
2gb = 4x500 platters

thus: for speed, its logical to say that 2tb > 1tb > 640gig

what i'm wondering is, what kind of performance improvement will there be, switching between the above drives? have any benchmarks been done?

i'm buying a new comp soon and I'm trying to decide between these 3 drives. thanks

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spinny   09-02-2009 at 07:46:19 AM

Performance improvement in what area?

If we are talking purely hard drive performance, the difference between these densities will shave time off of read/writes, but we are talking seconds, not minutes, depending on the size.

In other words, nothing to lose sleep over. Buy what you can afford. If you are seriously concerned about speed, just grab a smaller Seagate that uses 500 gig platters.

Reply to spinny
skywalk   09-02-2009 at 08:03:27 AM

thanks Spinny.

I basically do 3 things on my comp:
- lightroom/photoshop
- games
- email/surf

right now on my WD greens, the load times as i'm scrolling through pics is slow. takes 2-3 secs to load each pic. If I could shave them off, it would be wonderful!!!

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Bronze Storage badge sminlal   09-02-2009 at 08:12:21 AM

skywalk wrote :

right now on my WD greens, the load times as i'm scrolling through pics is slow. takes 2-3 secs to load each pic. If I could shave them off, it would be wonderful!!!

What's the typical file size for these pictures? Are they large RAW files from a DSLR camera?

The WD Greens spin down after about 8 seconds of inactivity, so if you're pausing several seconds between loading pictures you might be seeing the spin-up delay.

RAW files can require a fair bit of CPU crunching to display, so might be possible that the delay isn't related to your hard drive.

Reply to sminlal
skywalk   09-02-2009 at 08:16:44 AM

ahhhh bottleneck might be my CPU. should have thought of that. I always thought its HD access time.

all RAW files btw. and the worst wait occurs when I zoom in/out, or skip ahead more than 5 pics.

i'm getting a WD V-raptor 150 gig for OS, and black 640 or 1tb for music/storage.

when SSD drops, i'll put games on the V-raptor and OS on SSD. hope my new i7 will be fast enough to handle RAW files at MY speed! :)

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Reply to skywalk
Bronze Storage badge cjl   09-02-2009 at 10:45:37 AM

The 2TB would probably be noticeably faster than the other drives, but there wouldn't be much difference between the 1TB and 640 in speed.

------------------------------ Asus P6T deluxe
i7 965 @ 4.2GHz (200*21), 1.384V
12GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 CAS 7
 Reply to cjl
amnotanoobie   09-02-2009 at 11:15:50 AM

skywalk wrote :

ahhhh bottleneck might be my CPU. should have thought of that. I always thought its HD access time.



Don't count out the Green's, they are slow drives and really ideal for mass storage. With a Black or a Seagate you'd probably shave half the time or more when loading images.

The price to capacity ratio of a Green is hard to beat, but it isn't a performance drive.

Reply to amnotanoobie
skywalk   09-02-2009 at 03:05:27 PM

thank you for all the informative replies.

last question: I read a review that the 1TB is hotter and louder than the 640. Is this bad enough to get annoying or problematic?

cheers

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Bronze Storage badge sminlal   09-03-2009 at 06:52:43 AM

skywalk wrote :

all RAW files btw. and the worst wait occurs when I zoom in/out, or skip ahead more than 5 pics.

Zooming delays sound like a CPU bottleneck, as zooming doesn't normally require reloading the image from disk. You can run task manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and click the "Peformance Tab" to see if the CPU is maxed out.

If you don't have enough RAM, it's also possible that your system is paging. That translates to a disk bottleneck, although it's better solved by getting more RAM to eliminate the paging altogether rather than upgrading the hard drive to make the paging faster.

...and for all I know it could still the hard drive.

Reply to sminlal
skywalk   09-03-2009 at 07:25:26 AM

well...i'm buying a new core i7 system with V-raptor so im hoping all this will go away ;)

thanks

Reply to skywalk
jsc   09-03-2009 at 11:14:02 AM

skywalk wrote :

thank you for all the informative replies.

last question: I read a review that the 1TB is hotter and louder than the 640. Is this bad enough to get annoying or problematic?

cheers


I do not know. I have a 640 GB Black and two 1 TB Greens in my gaming and multimedia machine. Drive temp in an Antec 900 case are generally 27 - 28 C. And all three drives are quiet.

Reply to jsc
Bronze Storage badge cjl   09-03-2009 at 11:26:15 AM

For large RAW files, make sure you have enough RAM. As stated above, if you don't have enough RAM and you get a faster hard drive, it'll help a bit, but getting enough RAM would help a ton. As for the 1TB black? I have one, and it seems fine to me. I haven't noticed any trouble at all (though it is louder than the velociraptors, which are practically dead silent).

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------------------------------ Asus P6T deluxe
i7 965 @ 4.2GHz (200*21), 1.384V
12GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 CAS 7
 Reply to cjl
skywalk   09-03-2009 at 05:07:33 PM

cjl wrote :

For large RAW files, make sure you have enough RAM. As stated above, if you don't have enough RAM and you get a faster hard drive, it'll help a bit, but getting enough RAM would help a ton. As for the 1TB black? I have one, and it seems fine to me. I haven't noticed any trouble at all (though it is louder than the velociraptors, which are practically dead silent).




I have 4 gig of ram in my winxp 32bit system, so just over 3 gigs is usable right now. So I kinda doubt it's the ram. I think it must be the HD and the CPU. Can't wait to upgrade!

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