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On 10/27/2011 11:15 AM, Dale wrote: |
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> Howdy, |
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> |
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> I'm wanting to get a hard drive that is pretty good size. I'm looking |
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> for about 1 to 2TBs or so. Thing is, a lot of them seem to be 5900 or |
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> even 5400 rpm drives. I realize that the data on there is packed pretty |
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> tight so I want to ask a few people that may have one or more of these |
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> things a few questions. Are they as fast as a slower RPM drive? |
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|
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I assume you meant to say "as fast as a faster RPM drive". No, of |
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course not. If we're speaking about the same capacity and amount of |
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platters, of course. If we're not, then yes, they can be as fast |
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because of the higher data density. |
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|
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|
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> Would |
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> they be fast enough to play HD videos and such? I have quite a few 1080 |
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> HD videos. I don't want the drive to cause issues. |
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|
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The transfer speed required for playing HD videos is virtually zero. |
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1080p video compressed using an 8mbps rate require 2MB/s. This can be |
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done even with the slowest drive from 10 years ago. Today's slowest |
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drive are able to play about 40 or 50 of those HD video simultaneously. |
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So the answer is yes. They can play HD video :-) |
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|
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Most of those 5900/5400 disks are meant for pure data storage. The |
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lower RPM is used to market them as "green and silent", meaning they |
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don't consume much power and aren't noisy. Installing your OS on them |
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though isn't going to give you good speed. They have good transfer |
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rates, but their access times usually suck. |
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|
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|
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> Can someone that has one or more of these post their hdparm -Tt results? |
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> Different speeds would be great too. I'd like to compare what a 5400rpm |
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> drive would do compared to a 7200rpm drive. |
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|
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Simply Google around for benchmarks of the drivers you're interested in. |
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Note that is in area where it doesn't make any real difference that |
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the benches or reviews you find are performed under MS Windows. The |
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results are applicable to every OS. |
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|
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As a rule of thumb when buying drives: if you want to install software |
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on it, buy an 7200RPM drive with good access times. Of course they're |
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more expensive If you just want to store all your downloaded HD porn |
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and music collection on it, a silent 5400RPM drive is a good choice. |
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|
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Oh, and one other thing; hdparm is only meant to get you the continuous |
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I/O transfer rate. It's an awful benchmark for anything else, like what |
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happens if a file is fragmented or how fast it can copy/write data |
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spread around the disk, how good it is at combined random I/O operation, |
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etc. |