Which Hard Disk to get?

I am currently mulling over which hard disk to have fitted to my sleek new 6224W. I gather that the hybrid hard disks on offer will allow for faster boot times under Windows Vista. A few questions:

1) Does this fast boot-up only work under Vista or would XP benefit?

2) Am I likely to see much benefit for gaming given that a game will not really be using cached material. Indeed, would I get better results with a standard 7200rpm HDD given that the hybrids are only available in 5400rpm versions.

3) Are there any other benefits/disadvantages to hybrids compared to traditional drives?

Many thanks

Martin

 

1. As I understand it, to utilise flash memory, you need Vista's ReadyBoost technology - so WinXP doesn't benefit from it. I may be wrong, but that's what I understood.

2. No idea for certain, I guess it depends on the game - but I went for the 7200rpm after originally going for the Hybrid 5400rpm. But I also got XP, not Vista...

3. They are less power hungry and are meant to help battery life. I can't quantify or confirm this.

I think flash memory is evolving so fast, I just went for the fastest raw HDD and then in 6-12 months i'll buy a big chunky flash memory express card.

Petrov.

 

I just read that samsung will be releasing a 64 gb flash harddrive ( http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semiconductor/FlashSSD/index.htm , only 64 instead of 32)
Might be worth waiting for, even if 64 gb isn't all that much
not sure about the flash card you're referring to petrov, sort of defeats the purpose of flash hd if you already have a conventional disc-based one (or can you replace that hd unit with the card?)

 

The SSD are expensive though

 

No it doesnt defeat the purpose. SSD is only fast in random access reads and writes. It has almost no seek time. Conventional hard drivers are faster when writing and reading large chunks of date (if its not fragmented).
HAving a conventinal disk and combining it with flash, be it Robson, hybrid disk or USB sticks, has the greatest potential for speed because you can get the best of both worlds.

SSD use less power that is why you are seeing them mostly in expensive small size business laptops.

 

@ wave
I meant purely along the lines of flash hds weighing only a fraction of conventional hds and not emitting any heat or sound at all (you know, the freaky new thang), besides the enhanced speed in certain areas and lower battery strain.
You're absolutely right tho in saying a combination of the two is the way to go.
Sort of looking forward to flash hd completely usurping those noisy, hot, power-sucking frisbee drives tho
not to mention the fact they don't like movement of any kind (actually reminds me of some portly friends I have)

 

Hybrids could save power consumption and may increase access time on frequently used files - but not if the flash part is just 256MB. From my POV it's way too early to switch to those drives.

And no - you don't need Vista to utilize hybrid drives. ReadyBoost is a useless technology to increase performance on low end (<512MB RAM) machines - if you have more than 512MB RAM installed don't even think to use it (heavy CPU load).

As for SSD - don't even think about a discussion before 2010.

 

In the only review I have found so far they said that hybrid uses Readydrive and mainly speeds up boot time. So without Vista you wont benefit much.

Here is the review. Its in German sorry. http://www.winfuture.de/magazin/Hyb...gen-sie-wirklich-Ein-erster-Test-31060-1.html
they tested with a Zepto 6214W. They measured a speed up of 30% in boot time. Improving from 37s to 26s with readyboost.

It also tells that 10MB is used for the firmware and 32MB as cache to leave the normal disk inactive more and save battery. So only 224MB is available for Readydrive.