Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Tac on July 08, 2010, 04:37:49 PM
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1 terabyte, 7200rpm 32mb cache
or
1 terabyte, 5400rpm, 64mb cache
As you can see, one has faster spin speed but the other has a faster cache speed. Both have the same capacity.
the difference in price though is rather big. the 5400 rpm is much cheaper.
Please note that I really dont give a crap about the game taking a few more seconds to load when you start it up (I guess thats where the HDD is really active) but once the game is running.. will the speed of the hard disk really impact performance (since all games nowadays pretty much run off the ram)?
What say ye?
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I would go for higher rpm everytime. I have tested a lot of drives and the WD 7200 rpm 64 MB cache drives seem to deliver the best bang per dollar. The Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm drives ST########NS seem to last longer. I have older Maxtor drives that have lasted longer than the WDs but good luck finding one.
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The size of the cache has nothing to do with the speed of the cache. The 5400RPM drive cache will be slower RAM as it does not have to be fast in order to satisfy the slower data rate of the 5400RPM drive.
Games have to load files on the fly. No game can load all the data it will possibly use into RAM at one time. Disk performance is critical to smooth gameplay.
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Are you running a 64bit OS? Otherwise, an application can only use 2GB of ram and the rest goes to the swap file. I'm not sure if Aces High has the (I believe it's called the LAA flag?) set to allow it to use more RAM even on 64bit systems. Also, Aces High seems to call sounds on-demand. So, a slow hard drive can certainly impact in-game performance; most "stutters" can be attributed to the game having to wait for data off the hard disk.
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thanks that clears it up :)
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Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
$94.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533
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Here's the Microsoft page on Memory Limits For Windows Releases. (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx)
And all else being equal, a disk spinning at a faster speed is able to move more data bits past the read/write head in a given amount of time.
Big hardware cache helps some for sequential access reads (i.e., video, music), but not so much for random access reads (i.e, games).
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Seagate man Seagate. Western Digitals always seem to take the crapdive a lot sooner.
<S> Oz
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Bah.. I've seen more Seagates fail than WD... I really don't think it matters anymore to be honest.
Forget about the speed of your 1GB drive. Get yourself a decent boot drive (SSD or Velociraptor). Put windows and AH on it... and then get the cheapest TB drive you can find and use it for storage... you know.. movies, pictures, music, etc... the stuff where speed isn't so critical. BAM! DONE!
I don't understand why anyone would want to use a huge hard drive for a boot drive anymore... it's just more stuff to lose if/when it fails.
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Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA/300 7200RPM 32MB Hard Drive - 5 YEARS WARRANTY
http://www.gearxs.com/gearxs/product_info.php?products_id=13914 (http://www.gearxs.com/gearxs/product_info.php?products_id=13914)
$35.99 free shipping
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I don't know WD have a real reputation to fail much earlier than Seagate hard drives.
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I don't know WD have a real reputation to fail much earlier than Seagate hard drives.
I've had about 15 WD drives in my day, 3 Seagates, and a Maxtor. Out of the WDs, only one failed (after sitting in a damp basement for over 3 years). All 3 Seagates failed while installed in a system. The Maxtor was still going strong last time I used it, but it's an old, slow 40GB model.
So in MY experiences, WD is better than Seagate. I'm sure there are others out there with different experiences, but my point is I'm not sure there is much of a difference between WD and Seagate anymore (durability-wise).
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Bah.. I've seen more Seagates fail than WD... I really don't think it matters anymore to be honest.
Forget about the speed of your 1GB drive. Get yourself a decent boot drive (SSD or Velociraptor). Put windows and AH on it... and then get the cheapest TB drive you can find and use it for storage... you know.. movies, pictures, music, etc... the stuff where speed isn't so critical. BAM! DONE!
I don't understand why anyone would want to use a huge hard drive for a boot drive anymore... it's just more stuff to lose if/when it fails.
From your post here Tigger29 I have to ask this..........
Are you married?
Or are Mrs Tigger29 & the kids computer gurus & do this instinctively?
:D
Otherwise you'd know why there are some that still would use a huge HDD as a boot drive.
It's EASIER to restore the drive!
Lord knows that's true in Pudgieland!
:salute
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From your post here Tigger29 I have to ask this..........
Are you married?
Or are Mrs Tigger29 & the kids computer gurus & do this instinctively?
:D
Otherwise you'd know why there are some that still would use a huge HDD as a boot drive.
It's EASIER to restore the drive!
Lord knows that's true in Pudgieland!
:salute
Haha.. about being married... well it's a long story.
I completely understand why someone would want to use a single drive on a computer... COMPLETELY... but.. in the OP's first post he was asking about SPEED. To be honest, the average person who wouldn't know how to set up a computer with two drives wouldn't even notice a difference between a 1TB 5400rpm and a 1TB 7200rpm drive (let alone 32mb vs 64mb cache). Besides, having two drives makes perfect sense to me.
Firstly, because the data that would take up the most space on a drive (media files) would not be accessed nearly as often as System and Program files... and when they ARE accessed, it's more of a sequential read... basically a media drive suffers a lot less wear than a boot drive does.
Think of an old vinyl record... you can put the needle at the very edge and play the entire record.. and repeat this probably thousands of times (if not more) and the record would likely show almost no signs of wear. Take that same record.. place the needle at a random spot... then a few seconds later move the needle to another random spot... repeat this thousands of times and I can guarantee the record is going to become scratched and worn. Also, imagine if there were an electric motor controlling the location of the needle. It too would suffer a lot less wear and last a lot longer during the first scenario than the second.
Basically, a drive used solely for media storage is going to last a lot longer and be a lot more dependable than a drive being used as a boot/programs drive.
Now, you mentioned difficulty of backing up/restoring multiple drives. Well, backing up and restoring a smaller drive is a much faster process than a large drive. Also, I fail to see how restoring a large drive is any easier than a small one? If anything, it would be slower and harder in my mind. I also fail to see why it really makes a big deal either way.. as restoring a drive isn't something that should be done often (and if your wife/kids are doing things to the computer to make this necessary on a regular basis, then maybe you need to look further into why that is).
But you are correct.. having a single drive for everything is a lot more simpler, and if that is your goal then by all means go that route.. but if you're looking to get the most performance out of your system then that would be ill-advised.