Hard Drive - Next Bottleneck?

[supertoast92]

Hey guys I'm still on the hunt to flatten out the "creases" in my system build (you'd think I would have stopped with the i7 upgrade... ).

I think my next bottleneck is the harddrive. Now I know that pretty much the only true way to guarantee getting around this would be to upgrade to an SSD. I think they're a bit out of my price range unfortunately.

This is my current drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148612&cm_re=ST3500620AS-_-22-148-612-_-Product

I find that it's quite slow on the responsiveness side, taking what seems about half an hour to "calm down" after system boot. I do have a heavy startup list (Steam is included) though, but regardless games such as Armed Assault 2 will freeze to allow the harddrive to load objects/textures, which can be quite annoying.

This is my current motherboard, which I'm pretty sure isn't the bottleneck: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130264

Any suggestions? Should I just bite the nail and get a new hard drive, or is the one I have now pretty much the best I can get for a traditional hard drive? Also, slower data access isn't a sign of a hard drive beginning to fail, is it? I defrag weekly with Auslogic's program, I manage to get 5% fragmentation each week

Thanks!

 

[Ubrales]

You can try a hard disk with a 32 MB or 64 MB Cache. You can also look into the 10,000 RPM drives which will run a bit faster. Probably the least cost approach.

 

[supertoast92]

Thanks for the reply!

I'm thinking that going to yet another hard drive really won't make much of a difference. So, I was thinking about picking one of these up from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148357

I would hope to fit the OS as well as some frequently used programs on this, the space shouldn't be a problem. I would then use my current system drive as a bulk secondary drive for all my other "junk"

Question is, would this work with my current motherboard, the MSI H55M-ED55? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130264 ?

The SSD is rated as a SATAIII 6GB/s while the board is a SATA 3GB/s.

Again, thanks!

 

[Ubrales]

Thanks for the reply!

I'm thinking that going to yet another hard drive really won't make much of a difference. So, I was thinking about picking one of these up from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148357

I would hope to fit the OS as well as some frequently used programs on this, the space shouldn't be a problem. I would then use my current system drive as a bulk secondary drive for all my other "junk"

Question is, would this work with my current motherboard, the MSI H55M-ED55? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130264 ?

The SSD is rated as a SATAIII 6GB/s while the board is a SATA 3GB/s.

Again, thanks!

Good idea! It will work. The SSD will run at 3 GB/s because of the motherboard limitations.

When you do this, try 'cloning' instead of having to re-install the OS along with all your programs.

 

[supertoast92]

Okay, glad to hear this solution will work! So, would this "cloning" method help me "move" the OS and crucial programs (i.e. Office 2007, Antivirus programs, etc.) over to this new SSD and maintain my other programs' (games and such) current location?

 

[Ubrales]

Okay, glad to hear this solution will work! So, would this "cloning" method help me "move" the OS and crucial programs (i.e. Office 2007, Antivirus programs, etc.) over to this new SSD and maintain my other programs' (games and such) current location?

Yes! Cloning will make an exact copy of the disk that you are cloning. The only caveat is that the disk that you are cloning to (SSD) be have space to hold all the data from the source disk.

More info:
http://www.acronis.com/articles/cloning-software/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj7iMAgji0I

There are some free cloning software online. I used Apricorn's software to clone disks from a laptop as well as 2 desktops, to larger drives. Worked well.

 

[supertoast92]

Oh, okay. Unfortunately my current hard drive has about 200GB worth of data on it, so that won't be an option. I think I wouldn't mind starting out fresh again reinstalling Windows. It might take an entire day but it would be worth it. Thanks!

 

[Ubrales]

Oh, okay. Unfortunately my current hard drive has about 200GB worth of data on it, so that won't be an option. I think I wouldn't mind starting out fresh again reinstalling Windows. It might take an entire day but it would be worth it. Thanks!

Yes! Re-installing Win 7 has its own benefits.

Over time, every OS starts to deteriorate with junk, and sooner or later we will have to re-install the OS rather than repair. Look at this as an opportunity.