Will I notice a performance increase with a Seagate Pipeline

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 11:12 am

I want a new hard drive, my current WD 80GB SATA is loud. The Seagate Pipeline 500GB ST3500321CS caught my eye, it is very quiet, and decently cheap. I looked at the review here and I am comparing the speed results, and it wins in everything over my hard drive except random access time.

Here are the stats. (The Seagate's are form SPCR's review)
And these are taken in HD Tach

Seagate
Random Access 17.7ms
Average Read 74.9 MB/s
Burst Speed 215.8 MB/s

My WD
Random Access 13.8ms
Average Read 49.9 MB/s
Burst Speed 123MB/s

These results I got when taking the longer 32MB test in HD Tach.

The Seagate pretty much demolishes my numbers, getting Average Read speeds of 150% of my WD, and it's Burst Speed being 175% of my WD, but the Radom Access time is what I'm worried about, the Seagate is about 77.5% of the speed at Random Accessing as compared to my Western Digital.

So my question is should I get one of these Seagates? Will I notice a decrease in system performance? Or should I go for something a bit faster like a WD Scorpio?

Thanks

Matija · Post by **Matija** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 11:21 am

HD Tach is mostly meaningless. Sequential reading speed is only relevant when you are copying large files from one drive to another. Try to find better benchmarks (for example, some done with IOMeter).

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:24 am

Well does anyone have this hard drive and could try it out for me on IOmeter or could give testimony to if it is good or not?

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:39 am

Random access time is very important for a system drive. I would not recommend a slow rotating drive for that use. Ideal is a VelociRaptor or better yet a good SSD for a system drive, and a slower big HDD (WD GP being my favorite) for storage.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 7:00 am

Although there's still no real world benchmark suite results concerning one-platter 500GB Pipeline, Seagate tends to lag behind WD and Hitachi in past 3 years in terms of desktop usage performance. I don't anticipate 500GB-platter generation would be a miracle for Seagate.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storag ... undup.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storag ... undup.html

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 7:08 am

Vicotnik wrote:Random access time is very important for a system drive. I would not recommend a slow rotating drive for that use. Ideal is a VelociRaptor or better yet a good SSD for a system drive, and a slower big HDD (WD GP being my favorite) for storage.

Well first off I don't have the type of cash to throw down for a VelociRaptor, and second off, I am getting on fine with the hard drive I have now, so any type of performance increase would be a bonus, but not really needed. So I was thinking of something like a WD GP or a Pipeline for my main system drive, while being not terribly fast, that isn't a problem, I just don't want it to be slower than the hard drive I have now, but I do want it to be quieter, much quieter.

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 7:14 am

Then I would go for a modern 7200RPM drive. There are some that are pretty quiet and you would get both reduced noise and increased performance. I cannot recommend a specific model though, since I'm not up to date on todays 7200RPM drives. Perhaps someone else here can recommend one.

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 3:25 pm

Well does anyone have any reccomendations?

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 5:10 pm

I would go for one of three drives.

WD6400AAKS (Blue 640GB) (mainstream)
WD6401AALS (Black 640GB) (Performance + 5 year warranty)
WD6400AACS (Green 640GB) (lower power, lower noise, slower drive)

Code: Select all

640GB            Black   Blue   Green
Cache in MB      32      16     16
RPM              7200    7200   IntelliPower (treat that as 5400)
Drive Ready Time 11 sec  13     14.3
Warranty         5       3      3
R/W Power watts  8.3     8.3    5.4
Idle Power watts 7.7     7.7    2.5
Standby watts    1       1      0.46
Sleep            1       1      0.46
Max shock        300     300    300
Idle dBA         25      25     24
Performance seek 29      29     29
Quiet seek       26      26     25

You won't find a drive over 640GB that can match the real world usage of these drives. You can beat them with an Intel SSD but the cost is much higher.

Don't assume because the 640GB version is fast that the 750GB or 1TB version is fast. Many people make that mistake. It's disappointing but you can't just buy by the brand name or series of drives.

as compared to your 80GB drive even the green model will be a noticeable improvement. But the price is so close you could pick any of the three. Barring a closeout special the Black and Green edge out the Blue.

Black has the extra 2 years warranty and twice the cache (32mb).

Green has the low power draw that will save you money in the long run.

Blue only has one saving grace and that is lower initial cost.

Blue_Sky · Post by **Blue_Sky** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 8:11 pm

I would like to second what dhanson865 said. If you have the money, get the Black, otherwise the Blue. If low power is paramount, the Green. 640GB still seems to be the sweet spot.

Seagate and Hiatchi make loud drives. I have had a number of each, and over time they've all been traded for WDs.

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 8:47 pm

Out of the 3 I'm assuming Green is quietest, followed by Blue, then Black being the loudest?

Blue_Sky · Post by **Blue_Sky** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 11:04 am

Yup, that's it. There have been a number of reviews that peg the Black editions as slightly louder than the Blue (a dB or two). The WD GPs spin at 5400 RPM.

QuietOC · Post by **QuietOC** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 11:24 am

Blue_Sky wrote:Seagate and Hiatchi make loud drives.

Wrong. My Hitachi P7K500s were quieter than any of my WD Caviar drives--too bad they were fairly slow too (high access times). The speed of the WD6400AAKS is worth the extra noise to me.

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 11:41 am

Now my decision begins...I might make a new thread with a poll asking which one I should get...because they're all basically the same price (10 dollars is nothing) But the things that are running through my mind (Go for the Black! It's the best and has a 32MB cache! Ya, but it's the loudest! The Green is where it's at, it's the quietest, the cheapest, and is low on power consumption! Ya but it is the slowest of the 3! Go for the Blue! It is right in the sweet spot of performance and silence!)

The 3 voices in my head continue to argue. I'll be looking at this for a while.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:23 am

Blue_Sky wrote:Yup, that's it. There have been a number of reviews that peg the Black editions as slightly louder than the Blue (a dB or two). The WD GPs spin at 5400 RPM.

The reviews the say this compare the 3 platter 1TB black vs the 2 platter 640GB blue. I'd say there is no noise difference between the blue and black assuming you get the 640GB version.