Hard Drive Variations

[Cataclysm]

Lookin to get new HD, but I'm seriously perplexed by the differences in them.

I've seen ATA-100s, SATA/150 and SCIS, but other then the obviouse RMP difference I dont really know the Pro's, Or Cons of each.

That and the fact that I can't find any info on whether or not my mobo (See Below) supports SATA or SCIS.

Any info on which to get, or whether the board supports, all, if any? Or whether there are better HD's around?

[Wiggo]

The 8RDA+ only supports IDE ATA133 (and lower) unless ya add a SCSI or SATA controller card.

[Cataclysm]

hmmm,k. IS it worth forkin out for the card and the better HD, or better to stick with an ATA HD?

[Darthtanion]

Stick with your IDE channels. The new drives with the 8MB cache are very solid performers offering excellent speed and better than average reliability.

SATA has potential, but by using an expansion card you will be limiting it's bandwidth to the speed of the PCI bus. It is wasted money and effort for the most part. Plus, with the possible future dominance of PCI-Express, it very well may end up being a flash in the pants.

SCSI, while theoretically faster than IDE, is a good deal more expensive. Setup can also be more than a little tricky, but has improved greatly over the past couple of years. But considering the speeds of current IDE devices, the cost simply does not justify the added expense unless you're planning on working with large database files or something similar.

[Cataclysm]

Yeah - This is just for gamin.

I've got 2 old-ass HD's that are like 5,400 RPM (I think thats the speed anyway). But alot of games take exorbitently long to unload, and get windows back to normal speed. So I'm guessing its the the old hard drives, plus theres 2 of them so I guess that slows transfer rate down again.

Anyway - I spos I'll go with my original idea of a Western Digital Caviar WD1200JB.

Should be a reletive improvement in performence.

[Wiggo]

Those JB's are quick and if those old drives are 5400rpm jobs then ya'll certainly notice the difference (especially when doin' a defrag or scandisk).

[Mr. C]

2 things to keep in mind here;

1.) ATA 133 has almost no performance advantage over ATA 100, so don't get conned into paying extra for ATA 133.

2.) A lot of these modern games are simply huge files and large amounts of them - indeed, a faster HDD will improve those load times a bit, but don't expect those load times to disappear. They will just decrease a bit.

[Mista K6]

Well, about those loading times, its not so much you HDD as it is you only have 256MB of RAM. When I had 256MB in this comp, after I exited a game, it'd take a long itme to get back to the desktop. When I added two more 256MB chips to get 768MB, returning to my destop is instantaneous. Also, an ATA/133 drive w/ a 2MB cache wont have any performance over an ATA/100 drive w/ a 2mb cache. I actually think my old WD JB (ATA/100) beat my new Maxtor (ATA/133), both had the 2mb cache. My ATA/133 w/ 8MB cache, well, I've never had an ATA/100 w/ 8MB cache, so I cant tell ya :shrug: . But 7200RPM over 5400RPM def offers some more performance :thumb: . : peace 2: Mista K6

[Cataclysm]

Yeah - I'm lookin to get a HD and another stick of Ram, so this is proly good place to ask another question.

I've heard that with the ram slots, the newer mobo's connect 2 or 3 of them together. Also, that cos of this, 2x256 stick will out-perform a single 512 stick, right?

If you input a 256, with a 512, will that perform as if they were 2x256 sticks ( I mean, as like I said befor, 2 sticks better then one) Or would the fact that the sticks are of dif amounts of-set that?

[Wiggo]

Keep ya memory modules to the same size, make and model or ya could be in for some unpleasent surprises.

[Cataclysm]

Soz, Back to last topic.

If the mobo incorperated an onboard SATA controller (Or at least caperbilities) would the SATA HD out-performer an IDE?

[Soulburner]

No, not unless the HD can push enough data to warrant needing SATA. Even a Raptor can only push in the range of ~80Mb/s (according to HDTach) and SATA can handle 150.