Better General Use Hard Drive

[SlowSpyder]

I'm looking at these two drives (or anything similar) to add to my desktop PC. Right now I have a 250GB drive, it's been sufficient for me for a while, but as I add movies, music, and pictures space is becoming limited. Games these days take 3GB+ and I love to game. So, I figured it's about time to add some storage and I wouldn't mind getting a bit faster drive. Right now when I load up some games it'll take 30+ seconds. This really isn't a big deal, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to have a bit more speed. Anyway, for a general use/gaming machine, can you guys give me some opinions and pros/cons on the two following drives? Which would you chose and why. Thanks!

640GB Western Digital This has good reviews and is cheaper then the 750GB drive ($85 shipped! I paid more for my wee-little 250GB drive). This one only has a 16MB buffer (not sure how important that is in the grand scheme of things) and will obviously have less storage by about 100GB.

750GB Western Digital This drive doesn't have many reviews yet. It is more expensive then the drive above at $145 for only about 100GB more space... not as good of bang for the buck. But, this drive has a 32MB buffer, again I'm just guessing more is better, not sure if that really makes much of a difference. I assume this is a 3 platter drive, which I understand will be a bit slower then the above?

I'm not suck on WD drives, they just seemed to be the cheapest, if there is something else worth looking at that's fine by me. I'm leaning towards the 640GB, I imagine the price difference doesn't warrant a small 100GB difference in space, but I'm not sure how important the buffer is in all of this. Again, please share your thoughs on these two drives and which I should get. I'll probably leave my 250GB drive as storage as well, maybe internal, maybe external... don't know yet. Thanks for any help/opinions.

 

[BassBomb]

640 offers better performance

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
640 offers better performance

This. The diff between cache size isn't that much, but the diff between the 250gig vs 320gig platters will be greater.

 

[996GT2]

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat

Originally posted by: BassBomb
640 offers better performance

This. The diff between cache size isn't that much, but the diff between the 250gig vs 320gig platters will be greater.

QFT...my 6400AAKS is so much faster than all of my other HDDs, SATA and IDE. The dual 320GB platters really make the continuous read/write speeds very impressive, although latency is not much improved because it is still a 7200RPM drive.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Excellent, thanks for the replies. 640GB it is then.

 

[glaukopes]

What about the Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB? Doesn't it have 334GB platters and 32mb cache? Samsung also now has a 640GB drive with the 334GB platters and 16mb cache. So I'm curious who wins this three way:
WD 640gb, 2x320gb platters, 16mb cache
Samsung 640gb, 2x334gb platters, 16mb cache
Samsung 750gb, 3x334gb platters, 32mb cache

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: glaukopes
Samsung 750gb, 3x334gb platters, 32mb cache

An interesting thought would be... how does Samsung get 750GB out of three 334GB platters? If they short-stroke the platters, then seek times go down.

 

[hclarkjr]

one question comes to mind about the 750 though, there are no benchmarks out yet on it yet so how can you say the 640 is faster? lets see some reviews first. also the 32mb of cache will make a difference. i remember when the 16mb cache drives come out everybody swore up and down and argued that the extra cache made no difference. funny how they now have gone to 32

 

[taltamir]

More cache is better, but only on the EXACT SAME DRIVE MODEL. Basically it is an engineering decision, there are tons of different engineering decisions that go into a drive that affect it's speed. In the end, it does not matter, what matters is how it performs in tests and real world situations (hopefully your tests are accurate).

If you mean the western digital 640GB drive though, then the only drives faster then it are the raptors and a few SSDs (not all SSDs are the same, again, go by model)

 

[octopus41092]

How about the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3750330AS. It's even faster than the Samsungs Spinpoint F1. I think it might even be as fast as the WD 640GB drive. Not sure about that tho.

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: glaukopes
Samsung 750gb, 3x334gb platters, 32mb cache

An interesting thought would be... how does Samsung get 750GB out of three 334GB platters? If they short-stroke the platters, then seek times go down.

by not using 334GB platters on the 750GB model...last time I checked only their 1TB model uses the 334GB platters, the 750GB uses the 250GB (or whatever) platters.

 

[glaukopes]

Then what does this mean?:

"Max. 334GB Formatted Capacity per Disk"

This comes directly from Samsung's 750gb "Features" section which you can find here:
http://www.samsung.com/global/...ubtype=63&model_cd=248

Anandtech's preview of WD's 640gb (http://www.anandtech.com/stora...owdoc.aspx?i=3269&p=2) shows the WD 640 and the Samsung 750 trading scores. They look fairly even except for one test where the Samsung destroys the WD, but the WD wins the majority of the tests.

In any case, I decided I would rather forgo the 32mb cache in favor of a (hopefully) quieter two-platter design and a slightly better price per gigabyte, since it seems like the WD is still pretty fast for the most part with just 16mb.

That leaves the WD 640 vs. the Samsung 640, but I guess the Samsung 640 is so new that I can't find any meaningful reviews that compare it to the WD 640. So given the ridiculously positive (for a hard drive) reviews of the WD 640, and the less than enthusiastic views of Samsung's F1's reliability combined with occasional reports of not liking nForce chipsets (I have a 680i), I decided to just go ahead and order a WD 640. I may regret it three months down the road if all the comparison reviews show the Samsung smoking the WD, but such is life when it comes to buying tech.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: glaukopes
Then what does this mean?:

"Max. 334GB Formatted Capacity per Disk"

It means that the max platter density is 334Gig, but it doesn't say that all platters are 334gig.

 

[glaukopes]

That's exactly how I'm interpreting it too. The platters have 334gb per platter areal density. The actual amount of gigabytes is not really the issue. The question is the density, because greater areal density typically means faster performance, quieter, less power, less heat, etc.

When Quicksilver claims the Samsung F1 750gb drive uses 250gb platters, I'm assuming he means platters with less areal density than the 334gb platters.

I have no way of knowing for sure which way it really is, I'm just going off of what I read on Samsung's website.

Ultimately though the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The benchmarks in anandtech's review show the drives being roughly equal except in one test that seems to really favor the 750's larger 32mb cache. So what it comes down to is a choice between better performance in the few situations that favor the larger cache of the 3 platter Samsung or the quiet and slightly better cost-per-gb of the 2 platter WD. (I'm not mentioning the Samsung F1 640gb anymore at this point due to the lack of information, reviews, and benchmarks.)

 

[supremelaw]

> Then what does this mean?:
> "Max. 334GB Formatted Capacity per Disk"

(See above for some good answers, already posted here.)

It most probably also means that this recording density
is achieved with PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording)
which is decidedly superior to the older horizontal recording
technology.

Also, the 750GB Western Digital in the original post
has a 5-year factory warranty, and the
640GB Western Digital has a 3-year warranty:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136283

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136218



Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Inventor and
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library

All Rights Reserved without Prejudice

 

[supremelaw]

Benchmark: here's our PerformanceTest v. 4.0 measurement of the WD7500AYYS,
wired to an eSATA port and an integrated Silicon Image 3132 controller:

http://supremelaw.org/systems/...WD7500AYYS.SATA-3G.JPG



Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Inventor and
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library

All Rights Reserved without Prejudice

 

[madman300]

I guess the forum popularity must have made some noise. Newegg just raised the price on the 640GB drive by $25 (84.99 - 109.99)

 

[glaukopes]

Are you sure? Both the Samsung and Western Digital 640GB drives are listed at $85 right now.

 

[madman300]

Perhaps it was a miss-pricing. I had two of these guys in my cart and this morning they had moved up to $109. Checked again this evening and they are back down to 84.99.