Another HDD upgrade question.

The machine in question is the one in the sig, a P-172X FX running the two stock SeaGate Momentus 7200.2 160Gb in Raid0.
http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_momentus_7200_2.pdf

I came across two brand new Toshiba MK3252GSX 320Gb 5400rpm for free.
http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Path=StorageSolutions/2.5-inchHardDiskDrives/MKxx52GSXSeries/MKxx52GSXSpecs

My question is would I really notice any difference in my system by upgrading to these larger Toshiba drives compared to the Seagates? I know there is an RPM difference but I would like some more space.

I use my computer for gaming, ripping DVD's and CD's and tranfering large files (4Gb +) to and from it.

Thanks ahead of time for help.

 

I think speed is great if you are a Gamer.....
But for dvd ripping and other stuff space is is good too.Man you got me on this one...
I would wait till SDD are at a lower price

 

Well price not a problem they are free.

 

not the SDDS dude

 

What? do you mean SDD's?

 

If you setup the hdd's in RAID 0 you'll probably see a slight performance increase along with much greater capacity.

 

Oh, didn't see that you were running the other two drives in RAID 0 already, in that case you would probably lose some speed when moving to the larger, slower drives.

 

But do you think it would be a really noticeable loss?

 

Probably not that noticeable, maybe 5 seconds more boot time, but the extra space would be worth it.

 

That Toshiba appears to be pretty decent according to this comparisson: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/.../compare,692.html?prod[1889]=on&prod[1872]=on

It beats the Seagate in raw performance numbers, but the Seagate holds the edge in the benchmarks. The net is, you might notice the difference with a stopwatch, but it really depends on what you do. BUT you CAN'T BEAT FREE. Go for the Toshibas, I would.

 

double the data density in the 320gb drives, I would in a second swap those out for the 160GB drives, I doubt there would be any noticeable difference in anything you do. More space, same difference is a no brainer to me.

 

I agree...

 

Ok I did the upgrade and used Acronis as stated in this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4229474#post4229474
For those who don't want to read

Anyway I have the full version of Acronis so the only 2 things I did different was it gave me the option to change partition size so I did, and it asked if I wanted to restore my MBR (Master Boot Record) and I did.

The original back-up image of my drive was 298Gb and the size of my new drives is 596Gb so I made my partition the max size and then restored.
3 hours later its done and the first time the machine boots it hangs at the Windows "Welcome" screen. So I hold the power button down and reboot, now it goes through Bios and the Raid config and then hangs at a blinking cursor.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

was the original backup that you did only when you had a single drive in the computer? and now that you have raid is that the image you are trying to restore to the hard drives?

 

The back up is one I just did of my current Raid 0 setup (160Gb x 2) I am trying to restore it to the new Raid 0 setup 320Gb x 2).

 

Try it again without restoring your master boot record and changing the partition size. You can always change the partition size later.

 

I got it to work by running these commands first
bcdedit /set {current} osdevice boot
bcdedit /set {current} device boot
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot
bcdedit /set {memdiag} device boot
and by not restoring the MBR like "fiziks" said.

The drives seem louder then the old ones for some reason. But it is working fine.

 

UPDATE

Now for some reason every time Acronis tries to do a back up it pops up and says "Could not read Sector 63 of Disk 2" so these new drives have bad sectors already?

But what is odd is I don't have a "Disk 2" unless it means the 2nd disk in my Raid0. In Disk Managment it shows my C drive as "Disk 0" and my external as "Disk 1" so where is "Disk 2" coming from?