Which 1TB drive to install OS on?

Hello I hope you can help.

I have two new 1 terabyte drives:

1)Western Digital WD10EACS, which has is 5400 to 7200 RPM; 16MB cache (www.newegg.com/Product/ Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136151)
2)Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 S721010KLA330, which has a 32 MB cache buffer; 7,200 RPM (www.newegg.com/Product/ Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145167).

One will have an XP OS install on a 20gg partition and one will be used for storing hi def videos. Which one should I use for the OS? Thank you.

 

The WD will be the quieter drive, so you may as well use that as the OS one since it will have to be running more often than the secondary.

 

Thanks for the fast response, as usual. The storage drive will almost exclusively be used on a network -a XP SP3 desktop containing all the media networked to a Mac Mini HTPC in a different room.

 

Sounds like a reasonable idea. This will presumably be done using windows file sharing?

 

Have been doing this for 2years and works like charm. So well, in fact I need more storage! Right click on the drive letter in XP and share folders and/or files. Mac sees them easily.

 

Yeah it should in theory work for any OS. I used windows file sharing for a while, but the latencies on it are very high, so I couldn't install games to my server PC. Therefore it got ousted in favour of Ubuntu in command line form. I'm still not very good with using it but it gets the job done.

 

Interesting. So you were trying to play games across the network, with the games installed on 1 pc but actually sitting at another pc? I haven't tried that but it works fine for hi def videos I find (mostly 720p though).

 

Yes, I found HD films worked fine - it's the latency for small files that's the problem. The games ran OK when installed to the server PC, but the loading times were huge.

 

Personally I would download a hard drive performance tool such as hdtach, Passmark or HD Tune to analyse both drives and choose the better. Of course this is if you want to utilise the better performing hard drive. As Sam said, the quieter WD may be better for the purpose (i.e. HTPC).

 

Thank you. Actually this is for my server PC so sound is not a big issue but performance is. On face value should the Hitachi be better performing drive due to its larger cache and faster speed? If so, perhaps I should install the OS on that and leave the Western Digital for storing and watching HD videos on the network.

 

The only reason there isn't a 32MB WD drive is because WD don't deem it necessary - in truth the WD is probably just as fast when spun up, and when not in use, will use less power by spinning down.

 

Thanks as always. Here are some tests done on these two drives, if you are interested:

http://www.storagereview.com/php/be...&devID_0=348&devID_1=352&devID_2=354&devCnt=3

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/1TB_HDs_MacPro/1TB_hard_drive_tests.html

 

dastott you may find these tests slightly better. Only since they are the smame tests on both drives, with the same diag software (HDTach & PCMark) etc.

Review - Western Digital WD10EACS

Review - Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000

Now looking at each item on there I come up with the following:-

1) The WD has a lower RPM simply due to the design of the drive. Its "Eco" function optimises spindle speed depending on the position of the head on the platter (i.e. faster closer to the spindle, slower on the outer edge of the platter). This is a power saving feature more than anything and the jury is still out on whether it gives data transfer any improvement at all.

2) The WD achieves 1TB by using 4x 250Gb platters and the Hitachi uses 5x 200Gb platters. The rule of thumb to remember here is the greater the areal density the faster the data transfer, so the WD should be better here.

3) The Hitachi has a cache size double that of the WD, however as Sam said, 32mb vs 16mb cache on HD's is still undecided. The jury is again out on how much performance increase (if any) the extra cache gives you.

4) The Hitachi seems to have a better average data write speed of 72.6 Mb/s versus the WD's 64.0 Mb/s.

5) The WD has a superior burst rate of 223 Mb/s versus the Hitachi's value of 198 Mb/s.

6) The Hitachi has a better random access time of 13ms and the WD has a time of 14.7ms

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the info. I will install the OS on the WD I think. However, having just changed the PSU to an Antec EarthWatts 500w and put it the new HD (the 5th) the PC is suddenly much noisier than before. Very odd.