Battle of the HDDs; 7200 RPM Vs 5400 RPM - Vs. SSD?

1)The amount of cache a hard drive has, does that make it better? Will that give performance gains? If a hard drive has 8MB cache, how much better does it make it than one with 4 MB? When would it be noticeble?

2)Supposedly, a hard drive runs more efficent if its being defragmented weekly...? Is it true that downloading large files to a hard drive wears it down? So basically Steam downloading and WoW Patching(just as an example) is slowly killing the hard drive... ?

3) Does more storage improve performance? (just more space to access?)

4) Does more free space improve gameplay? I heard someone who said, that games will run better on an almost empty hard drive, than a 50% full hard drive?

5)should a person go for a 7200rpm or 5400rpm for gaming? Is the benefit of faster worth it? does 7200 output significantly more heat, and eat significantly more battery?

6)SSD's do they run bad when near full, or will games installed still run great even if SSD is 98% full?

7)is there any gaming improvements of using SSD over HDD? If so, which?

 

I'm not an expert, I'm an amateur, but I'll share my experiences with the ones I can...

3) I believe in theory, yes. My understanding is that a hard drive will be slower wit more stuff on it (my apologies, I believe it has to do with search times, but I won't pretend that I truly understand it!) so more space = moreunused space, meaning faster response. (This is the answer I'm least sure of, so others more knowledgable here will probably correct or confirm, as necessary...)

4). I believe so - see 3 above.

6) I have the specs listed below, with a pair of SSD's, and they're pretty full these days. I have seen no slowdown of note, and been very happy with the performance. (I'm not at 98% full, but I've only got about 30 gigs left of free space. Have to get my photos and music moved back to my storage drives... )

7) Direct, in-game performance isn't all too noticable, but it is there a little (mostly in level loads, or anything the computer has to pull from the drive....) I also note a great improvement in starting games/loading saves, etc - overall, the system feels much more responsive than my previous gaming rig without the SSD's.

Anyway, I have no solid data (load rates, FPS, etc) to compare, just my opinions/observations. Hope it helps at least a little!

4) See 3, above.

 

(1) Cache is like a buffer. It leaves the most commonly accessed files there for quicker retrieval, or writes files to that so it doesn't have to wait for the hard drive. Obviously once the write cache is full, it loses performance, so a larger one is better, same reasons for read caching.

(2) It's not killing the hard drive. Defragmenting just orgainzes data on the disk in an order that can be retrieved more quickly because they're sequential on the disk instead of scattered throughout. Usually when you write files to a disk, it throws them the first place it can find to improve write performance. Of course this can decrease read performance then because it has to pick up all the data scattered across the drive. Defragmenting just puts all bits of a file in one contiguous area on the disk.

(3) More storage does not improve performance. Well, kind of. From a technical standpoint, it depends on the number of platters too. Data on the outside of the disk can be retrieved more quickly because it moves faster. So if you have two 250GB platters to make up a 500GB hard drive, it can store more on the outer edges, because it has two platters to store it on.

(4) A more full hard drive will not cause games to run slower. Depending on the game, a fragmented hard drive may drastically incrase game level load times, or if it uses streaming textures, may cause pop-ups, but very few games use streaming textures.

(5) For gaming, best to go with 7200 RPM. There is a direct correlation between hard drive spindle speed and read access and write times. Typically there is very little difference as far as power consumption, but there is usually an increase in temperature (although usually only a couple deg C) and vibration and/or noise.

(6) I wondered this too, but after looking into it, it seems SSD's run same performance no matter how full they are.

(7) No real gaming improvements except level load times.

But to get overall system improvement, SSD is better. However look into the new Seagate Momentus XT hybrid hard drive. It uses a 4GB (yes Gigabyte) SSD read buffer to greatly improve performance, and maintain the capacity of a traditional hard drive. It won't be near SSD performance, but it's closer to a desktop Western Digital VelociRaptor drive but in a laptop drive size (2.5" 9.5mm thick). You can get a 500GB for about $139.

 

Sort of, media are rated for a certain number of read/write cycles. However, in practice this number is very high, especially for SSD's, so don't worry about it. You do however, want to make sure you're not operating your drives at temps over about 60 deg C -- heat will destroy a drive much faster than use will.

Yes, and this is true for either SSD's (w/o TRIM support) or HDD's. If you run a performance test on an HDD, you will see that the performance (transfrer rate) is greatest at the start of the test when the drive is starting to be filled up. This is because all HDD controllers begin writing to the outside of the platter where the density of data pits are greater and work their way towards the center of the drive. The performance differential between empty and full disk transfers is substantial: about 50% on avg. Access times, however, should not be affected by disk size, only by rotational velocity -- and this is where SSD's really shine.

Higher capacity HDD's generally use more dense platters, which therefore also improves performance.

Not really. Internal to the system, I'd say 7k rpm drives are a better value than 5k drives. You'll notice the performance difference most when doing large file transfers, like backing up your HDD, which you should do periodically. The performance difference between drives (including SSD's) in most apps will be negligable. Externally, 4k rpm drives will usually run on USB power alone, but are slow. In the interest of speed matching drives for optization of transfers, you can speed match using 2 lower capacity external HDD's in a RAID 0 config, or use a same size&rpm single drive.

I don't own any SSD's, but I've read that they will degrade in performance over time as the drive fills up due to the manner in which controllers perform wear leveling (to extend drive life). Windows 7 supports "TRIM" which is a tech developed to combat this problem, and most current gen SSD's support TRIM; however, even SSD's that support TRIM can't use it in a RAID config. Otherwise, neither fragmentation nor capacity utilization should impact SSD performance.

 

Agree with what htwingnut said.
I want to add to the point 3. In addition, a larger drive would generally perform faster as the areal density(thus the time required for the read/write head to access a particular sector decreases).

So, in general, a 7200 rpm(biggest drive you can find) should perform better.
Momentus XT/SSD's(XT only in some situations, read tasks) are another matter altogether.

Overall, you might want to look into Momentus XT.Some of the reviews, were very favourable.

 

I will only answer number 6 since all the other questions have been answered numerous times.

6)SSD's do they run bad when near full, or will games installed still run great even if SSD is 98% full?

I am running a 60 gig OCZ Vertex drive in my lappy and my desktop. I do more gaming on my laptop because of travel. Currently my laptop SSD is about 90% full, desktop is at 60% and I see no difference in performance. Having SSDs will not improve game performance but it does greatly improve load/startup times.

I plan to raid both of the Vertex SSDs in my lappy and get another one for my desktop soon. I don't think I could ever go back to using a regular HDD for OS or games again.

 

Thanks for the answers. Feel a lot smarter now

 

Well there is the Hybrid HDDs also.

500GB of space with 4GB of Solid State @ $129 and about 80% of the speed of a SSD, and 40% more energy efficient than a traditional HDD.

I'll go going for that sometime later, replace my 2 500GB HDDs with that if user reviews are good for them.

 

Are you talking about, Seagate Momentus XT?
If so, it comes nowhere near 80% of the speed of a SSD(in best-cases yes, but in others it will lag behind even other magnetic hard drives).

Also, it consumes a bit more power on average than a traditional HDD.
But, at least it is a start. I will definitely keep my eyes open for the next version.(by which time, Intel,Micron would release their 25nm drives, which allows double the density of current SSD's, thus potentially reducing prices.)

2011, would be an interesting year for Hard Disks, I guess.

 

I also mentioned the Seagate Momentus XT. It has definite speed advantages over any traditional hard drive and when it doesn't it still has the benefit of the 7200RPM 32MB cache 7200.4 drive, which is still a pretty decent speed hard drive. A step in the right direction. I just hope WD comes back with a similar (and better) tech.

 

that actually sounds good. just checked some very positive reviews for this Momentus XT

 

Your statements are so generalized it's sad. More consumption on average you say? No it seems on average it should be equal or better. Only on certain situations will a traditional HDD will use less power. Hybrid can use as little as .61w.

And for actual use with applications, the hybrid are fast enough the average user won't even be able to tell between SSD and Hybrid.

I also disagree about prices. It's pure speculation on your part, there is no reason for Intel/OCZ etc to lower prices if people are still buying them at those insane prices.

I'd rather believe this review than your speculations.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3734/seagates-momentus-xt-review-finally-a-good-hybrid-hdd

 

There are no hard rules in computing.

This is FALSE.

Drives have a designed purpose.
I have a 32meg 1tb drive in my server that gets it's butt handed to it by a 16meg 1Tb drive. Both are the same spindle speed and the same manufacturer.

Cache can be used to speed up a drive or it can be used to lower power consumption.

Generally, yes. This is NOT a hard rule though.

Some drives are designed for energy efficiency.
If you take a Seagate 16meg cache 250gig drive and compare it to a an 8meg cache 500gig, guess which will win. On the other hand, refer to my response to #1. Another example is Raptors, my 5 year old 70 gig performs better than most brand new 1TB drives.

Again, drives are designed for different reasons, read the specs, and look up test results. Just because the specs are good, doesn't mean it will be faster.

Free space means there will be less fragmentation and hence, a faster drive.

Another falsehood.
Typically a 7200 is faster, but there have been more than a few 5400 rpm drives that outran the 7200's.

Also, there are some very efficient 7200rpm drives using less power than some 5400's.

Not only can they run bad, but I have seen them corrupt data when they get near full.

The general rule is never use more than 50%.

Not all SSD's outperform all spinning drives. Go look at Newegg at transfer rates on various SSD's and you will see why.


Bottom line... Read the specs and read the tests. Nothing is 100%, there are plenty of exceptions to the rules. Buying blind is just that, buying blind.

 

Fragmentation, and location of data. Data on the outermost portion of platter is faster because it's moving faster. Data spacing is the same on the outside as it is on the inside, unlike on DVD's or CD's where the spacing increases to accommodate a constant read rate.

The 5400 RPM's that are faster usually either (a) have more and/or faster cache, or most likely (b) large capacity perhaps on fewer platters, so has much higher areal density, which allows for faster data read/write (see above).

Wrong. I've read various articles over the last year or so and seems 80%, but even that is incorrect. Ask over at the SSD thread, general concensus is max capacity doesn't affect speed. I can't see how an SSD can corrupt data when full. Only give you an out of space message.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...marks-brands-news-advice-520.html#post6303034

 

Data at the outer edge of a platter transfers faster, it accesses slower.
If you use Defraggler it gives you the option of moving larger files to the outer edge for this reason. Rotation speed is only half the equation for access times, arm movement is the other half.

Generally, yes, 5400's that are faster have more cache, but again, it's not 100% fact. There is more to a drive than spindle speed and cache. How fast does the drive spin up, how fast does the arm sweep, how fast can it transfer or read... Lots more to it than to simply say this drive is faster because of two specifications. I can show you a ton of 10K Cheetah scsi with lots of cache that kick the living ___ out of almost spinning disk on the market, too bad they are hampered by a slow transfer rate making them no faster than many IDE drives. My Raptors are also nearing the end of their reign for the same reason.


Max capacity on a Hard Disk can effect speed, not an SSD. Fragmentation is less of an issue with them as well.

The 50% vs 80% is personal opinion. My understanding is that manufacturers are still saying 50%. Yes, they are out to sell drives. Regardless, there is no hard rule. You shouldn't fill any drive more than 80% regardless.

I get data corruption on 2 flash drives (not ssd, but similar) when they get nearly full (97%). Not sure why, all tests show they are fine on several systems and several tests. They just seem to not like it.

 

I am thinking of two XT's in raid, here is the quandry. When you have two or more HDD's in raid they are usually not 100% sync'd. Meaning the data per track may be but the rotational position of data isn't. For this reason you usually increase seek times in getting data up to a full rotation of the drive or even more. If the head movement is slightly slower on one drive than another you could theoretically add 2-3 rotations to the latency and possible controler latency as well.

The cache and with the XT the SSD should not suffer the rotational latency issue. The cache flushing could suffer somewhat though. SSD's in Raid0 suffer none of the rotational issues as they don't exist.

The advantage of Raid0 though is the same track for both drives holds 2 times the data between the drives. This should lower the need for head movement. Also the effective cache and SSD section is doubled in overall size and speed. So those are other huge plus's.

If there ever was an HDD begging for Raid0 I think it is the XT's As they improve hybrids they will beg for raid all that much more. There is one review out there with Raid0 and I think it demostrates the HDD section access issues pretty good but there is a huge advantage in Raiding the Hybrids, even more so than with standard HDD's.

The jury is still out but I think a Hybrid Raid0 is in my near furture. No Trim or GC worries, Decent performance and size of the SSD section, 64MB effective cache, 1TB storage, if the SSD section dies my data still lives, about $260.00.

My other option is an 80GB X25 G2 for boot but SSD deaths in general have me worried. I can live with 80GB boot but why? with a 320GB Black I boot in 42 seconds now to desktop, XT @ Raid0 will just be that much faster.

 

Hah, the SLC flash memory in the Momentus XT will outlive the HDD by ages. SLC flash memory has been used for decades and is definitely been a tried and true solution for the most demanding applications.

 

What I'd like to see is a single 2.5" housing holding both a 32-64GB SSD and a 320+ GB HDD, rather than a HDD with a 4GB read cache.

Most laptops don't have two drive bays.

 

Actually, almost all notebooks do have two bays that can fit a 2.5" HDD or SSD, it's just that one of them is typically the ODD.

 

Where do you base this on?

Alle the benchmarks I've seen indicate the Momentus XT is the fastest notebook HDD.

Except the Techreport review that probably contains errors.

 

Interesting comments, I was thinking along similar lines, but we'll not know for sure until you buy and confirm

My notebook doesn't support RAID despite having secondary module, otherwise I would buy two and try it.

I had a 64GB SSD and used secondary modular HDD, it was a PITA watching space requirements all the time, can't deny the performance though.

 

And you can retrofit that with an adapater. Problem is finding one that fits and aesthetically complements the system.

 

Just have to find the dimensions of the ODD used, though faceplate color might be slightly different.

 

Well, faceplate dimensions vary too. My Sager isn't just a flat face. It has a "step" in it to match the geometry of the laptop. If you just have a flat face it might be ok, even then some are wider, some are taller, and yes color can be an issue too.

 

It says here :

"We also have to mention that power consumption of this drive is slightly higher than other drives on average, which results in shorter battery runtime on notebooks.....
In the end, we don’t see real disadvantages for the Momentus XT, except the somewhat-higher power requirements compared to competing 500GB drives."

And even in Anandtech:

"Compared to the Seagate Momentus 5400.6 the XT uses considerable more power. Only when reading out of the NAND would I expect lower power consumption. "

But, he goes on to mention that:
"What this means is that depending on your workload you might see worse notebook battery life with the Momentus XT compared to a mainstream drive. For the majority
of usage models I'd expect equal if not better battery life with the Momentus."


Anyway, this pretty much goes against your claim of hybrid hard drives bein 40% more energy efficient than a traditional HDD as you said here:

I had said:
"Intel,Micron would release their 25nm drives, which allows double the density of current SSD's, thus potentially reducing prices."

So, obviously it is pure speculation, on my part. However, I would expect a price drop at least by Q2 2011. Let us wait and see.

Perhaps, you should read the reviews properly,it is clearly stated(Page 1):
"Note that you shouldn't expect to get the same performance out of the Momentus XT's single NAND device as you would an SSD. Remember that modern SSDs have
anywhere between 4 and 10 channels of NAND accessed in parallel to reach their very high transfer rates. A single NAND device isn't going to end up anywhere
near as fast. At best the Momentus XT should be able to read from the cache at 20 - 40MB/s depending on the data being accessed and the type of NAND Seagate is using."

And(Page 8-Conclusion):
"While the Momentus XT isn't quite as fast as an SSD, it's a significant improvement over the mechanical drives found in notebooks today.In many cases the Momentus XT
performs like a VelociRaptor, but in a lower power, quieter package."


Also, mentioned in the Conclusion page of Tom's Hardware review of Momentus XT:

 

Agreed. Perhaps, I wasn't clear, I was actually comparing it to the Velociraptor,WD Caviar Black 2 TB(and other such drives).It was in response to ziddy123's statement
that hybrid hard drives are "80% of the speed of a SSD, and 40% more energy efficient than a traditional HDD".

But in the context of notebooks, I think Momentus XT seems to be a very good choice. But, I am hoping for more from the successor/competitors of the Momentus XT.

 

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if WD comes out with a notebook "Raptor" hard drive using similar tech.

 

Hmmm... higher power consumption is worrying indeed... What I am wondering is, what it means overall.

I am not even sure that I have the slightest idea of how much battery the hard drive eats?

lets say I have a laptop with 5 hours of battery life with a normal 7200 rpm hard drive. how much of those 5 hours goes to the GPU, and how much to the CPU, and how much to the battery?

And how much would Momentus XT eat if it was replaced with the normal 7200 rpm?


if we're talking about it would cut 5 minutes off, the battery it might not be that big of a deal, but if it was 30 minutes, or 1 hour... then it would be a disaster for machines that seek portability!

 

Tom's hardware lost 15% compared to a Seagate 7200.4 with a 14" notebook. It was a synthetic test though. I haven't seen real life reports.

 

holy . thata 1/6!

That's actually significant! gahhh...

 

What's the rest of your notebook luffytubby?

On a 10" netbook the difference will be bigger, on a 17" notebook with dedicated GPU the difference will be smaller.

 

I am planning to get the Acer 3820 TimelineX ... i5 520, with 5650. a small, but powerful package. on integrated graphichs, with modest settings it should be able to do 3-5, and much less with the ATI enabled.

I dont know..

I hoped this would be able to give me the overall performance. I would pay for a 80 GB SSD, but I also have to do other stuff, so I need the hard drive to be 500 GB at least.. yeah, I also run small externals on the side, but 80/128 is to little for my needs

Yeah, so that's where I saw the potential in this. I've never tried SSD so I don't know what it's like.

Something tell me that I should wait with getting SSD. I get the sense that people are amazed by it. They are so amazed that they cant go back to HDD.. it's like nothing will ever be the same again. Yet, SSD have these problems like storage, price and some have bugs, and people are annoyed...

I don't know. The idea behind this drive is just cool. I want it to succed as it seems to be an innovative idea, and we gotta support those

 

SSDs do give a very nice boost to performance. I went back from SSD to HDD twice though. I didn't mind. HDDs have their advantage too. I've ordered my third SSD yesterday. So I'll be making the switch for the third time. Not sure if I will go back again.

 

which ssd have you ordered phil if you dont mind saying

 

Yes, SSD is definitely a noticable performance boost. But for the general every day apps, it's not extraordinary that it justifies the high cost. People are so concerned about boot times, but how many people actually boot a lot and is it that important to save 20 seconds in your day? I can see if you had apps that required lots of read/write operations, but even for general Office stuff, it doesn't touch the HDD until you save.

For me <$1/GB is really my price point, and even then $500 for 500GB storage? That's still crazy expensive considering you can get this drive for ~ $120 ($0.24/GB).

Bottom line, yes SSD is nice, but it's not really not worth its cost. It's kinda like going from 2Mbps to 20Mbps internet. Sure it is nice to download big files periodically super fast, but not worth $200/mo over $40/mo.

 

Well, I was under the impression that, even if you are not actually reading/writing anything directly (say saving/opening a file etc.), the OS is performing lots of 4K random reads/writes operations? (if you are loading applications.. etc) .So, an average user is likely to notice the difference even in parameters other than boot time,shutdown time..etc

I agree about the cost part, though. The cost of an SSD is way too expensive for the majority of users to justify an upgrade to it. Mass-adoption of SSD, seems to be a distant dream.

 

Keep in mind, that it was a synthetic test.
For the most part, the difference should not be more than 5%.(and sometimes even favours the Momentus XT,depending on the usage model)

 

After bootup or app load up, my hard drive sits there idle. Very occasional hdd activity. I have an Intel 80GB G2 SSD in my desktop. It's nice, but still not worth the $200 I spent on it. I could have gotten a 300GB VelociRaptor for the same price. My Intel SSD replaced my four year old 150GB Raptor hard drive, and it was a nice improvement, but still not super amazing.

 

Ok, so I guess, it all depends on your usage(as you stated in your previous post). Also, since you are comparing to a Raptor, I guess the perceptible performance difference for you is lesser.

 

At first I ordered a 30GB Kingston but I switched my order to a 40GB Intel G2. I think 100 euros is a good amount to spend on a hard drive.

I'll be using my external hard drive a lot

As soon as you do something it is noticeable. For example: launching any app, opening 'my computer', opening a new tab in a browser or opening control panel.

If you're not doing anything there's no difference.

 

I dunno, opening any app or "my computer" it opens up pretty quickly with my laptop hard drive. Excel took all of one second, 'My computer' was instantaneous. Tabs are instantaneous too, doesn't take much. I have the 80GB Intel in my desktop and I can tell you that while boot time is noticably quicker, and system feels a bit more responsive in general, it hasn't been a huge improvement that I can tell.

 

Well there's a difference between not much and instantaneous. That's the difference between a 7200rpm HDD and an SSD.

It's not a big difference. Yet it's nice to have the PC react without any latency.

 

I agree. But for 90% of what I do it's basically not noticable between the two. I guess it all depends on what's most important to you. It's like people that spend a thousand dollars on a faster GPU and elaborate liquid cooling system to get an extra 10 fps in their games. I think the response of the SSD is an improvement, but for most basic Windows apps and general use, I see little to no improvement in performance compared with my desktop Raptor drive I had (old Raptor not newer Velociraptor) and even my laptop Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB. To be honest I was a bit disappointed with my Intel G2 SSD after forking over $200 for an 80GB. I guess it all depends on the person and their needs, wants, and expectations.