Which Drive Is Faster?

are size and RPM *not* the main things defining read/write/search times? where does "SATA speed" come from? i am comparing 2 drives and rather confused by the results.

from one of those "compare hardware" sites:

A) Seagate Momentus ST9750420AS 750GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive

B) Toshiba MQ04ABF100 1 TB 5400RPM 2.5" SATA Notebook Laptop Hard Drive 7mm

they rate the toshiba way faster on all counts, in part (in full?) b/c it's SATA 6.0Gb/s and 128M cache stated elsewhere. so do either/both of those trump all? are they more than making up for the slow RPM, or am i misreading something?

i ask especially b/c the (prose) reviews all sound the reverse! calling the seagate lightning fast, etc., with the toshiba getting much more criticism. in fact, site itself concludes seagate 4/5 stars and toshiba only 1/5! what the? for the LARGER, FASTER, drive?!

bottom line, i want to "upgrade" from seagate to toshiba (both on hand) for SPACE reasons -- 750G vs 1TB -- but i hesitate b/c of the lower RPMs. until i started fishing around these "comparison" sites, i assumed seagate was the faster of the the two.

and maybe still do(?), given the mixed signals i'm getting. please set me straight!

 

Size isn't. Rotation speeds play a big role, in many circumstances, but not the only role. Seek (the time it takes to get to the first file segment) and read/write times tend to be more important.

SATA is the interface between the drive and the motherboard. This determines how fast data transfers between the drive and the computer. Older versions of SATA are slower than newer. But even slow SATA is faster than the old style interface, IDE (or EIDE or PATA and a few other names).

The size of the buffer matters in some events, and not others - but generally the larger the buffer, the better.

If this is your primary/boot drive, you should go for the faster drive. In fact, I recommend getting a 250GB (or larger) SSD for your boot drive. I personally don't consider moving from one hard drive to another hard drive an "upgrade". All you are doing is adding storage capacity. Any performance gains will be marginal, at best, and most likely unnoticeable for most tasks.

On the other hand, moving from the fastest hard drive to the slowest SSD is definitely a significant and clearly noticeable, major "upgrade". I don't use hard drives in my systems at all anymore.

If this drive will be used as a secondary drive, mostly for storage, I would not put much weight in performance. Remember, once the data is read into RAM, the drive's performance no longer matters. The vast majority of the data processing is happening between the CPU, RAM and graphics solution.

There are a couple important advantages to slower rotation speeds. They tend to consume less power. This is important for laptop users running on battery. They also tend to generate less heat - also important for laptop users. And they generally generate less noise. And if like me, you hate fan and drive motor noise (another reason I don't use HDs). And if everything else is equal, a slower rotation speed can result in longer life of the drive due to less wear over time. But note I said "can" and not "will" - there are too many other variables involved to make that an absolute.

Even the warranty is a deciding factor.

One more thing that makes a HUGE difference in drive and over all computer performance is your system RAM. If you only have a small amount of RAM, say 4GB, your system will have to access the slow drive much more often, as it can only load in and hold a small bit of data at a time. Remember, that 4GB also must hold the operating system, all your hardware drivers, networking and your security programs too. That leaves little room for any programs/application you want to run after that. A small amount of RAM also means the page file on the drive will need to be accessed much more often too. Having a PF improves performance - but the system being forced to frequently access the PF often due to an insufficient amount of RAM does not.

But if you have a large amount of RAM, like 8GB or better yet, 16GB, much more data can be loaded in to the MUCH FASTER system RAM and accessed by the CPU MUCH more quickly than if the system has to go out to the drive. This is true, though to a lesser extent, even if the drives are SSDs. Accessing data on a drive is always slower than accessing data in RAM.

So, to be sure, when starting with a small amount of RAM, adding more RAM typically provides the most bang for your upgrade $$$. These days, 16GB of RAM is generally considered the sweet spot. That is, less than 16GB and performance is noticeably degraded. More than 16GB and any performance gains are marginal, at best. There are exceptions, of course, but that is the general consensus. Very serious gamers or professional designers, for example, may consider 32GB that sweet spot.

 

thanks for giving me lots to think about!!

boot drive is separate; this one is just for data storage. i don't play vid games, but i do watch a lot of movies/tv shows, and they were constantly skipping and freezing on prior laptops -- even the ones with 8G RAM. so i figured drive speed was the determining factor.

so far no probs (skip/freeze) on the newest PC, which came pre-loaded with that seagate 750G. but i really want to swap in the toshiba one for the extra 250G -- just hesitating a bit along the lines of "ain't broke, don't fix it". for starters, the PC i'd be taking it from is a major skip/freeze OFFENDER. why would that be, if it has the same 8G RAM and a faster drive?

 

No. In fact, before SSDs became more affordable, many used even slower 4800 RPM drives in their HTPCs (home theater PCs) which they used as DVRs just because they made less noise.

If you have the drive bays, I would suggesting simply adding another drive instead of replacing that one.

 

no, there's no 3rd bay. this is the first laptop i've ever had to even have 2!

 

Sorry - I assumed we were talking about a "PC" - as in a desktop or tower computer. That said, are you now saying this laptop already has two drives installed? I note there are many newer laptops that support M.2 drives because they are much smaller - about the size of stick of RAM - as seen here. So support for more than one drive is becoming more and more common.

Regardless, if you are looking to improve drive performance, a SSD still the way to go.

As a side note for future reference, when you say "PC", desktop or tower computer is what commonly comes to mind. While a laptop is indeed a "personal computer", we usually differentiate the two types by calling the mobile type a laptop or notebook.

 

perhaps some tech types still default to "desktop" when one says "PC", but u surely cannot say that for the population in general! everyone i know says "PC" and i haven't seen a desktop in like 12 years!

(besides which, OP says both "notebook" and "laptop" explicitly....)

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there are 2 drives installed. a 128G windows/boot drive and the 750G seagate data drive. i am debating swapping out the latter for the 1TB toshiba, left spare from a prior laptop.

(obviously i'd rather swap out the 128G for it, but i don't have windows source/CAB files, and i predict an unholy mess trying to pull that off. i'm content to at least upgrade the 750 to 1000.)

i am dealing with all that in another thread; here i just wanted to clarify whether the toshiba actually IS a better drive? comparison sites show me it's faster on all the key metrics, then write reviews calling it slower!

basically, i want the extra 250G; just hesitating in case it's somehow a lesser drive in other aspects. i can see myself a week from now saying "well, THAT backfired...."

 

Ummm, just because you have not seen a "PC" in 12 years does not mean you are typical. In fact, I would suspect most posters at tech support forums, especially those who post in hardware sections, are PC owners. This is because laptops are so proprietary with very limited upgrade options, whereas PCs typically conform with the ATX Form Factor standard which allow users to actually build, repair and upgrade their own PCs.

Regardless, this is not a point worth debating. I am just letting you know, when seeking help on technical support forums, it is always best to first, provide complete specifications for the computer you are seeking help with. This is so there is no question about what we are helping with. And second, posters should try to get terminologies correct.

Do note we still see people start threads saying they are having problems with their CPU. They don't mean CPU, they mean that "box" all the computer parts are in - as opposed to the keyboard, mouse or monitor.

Those of us who regularly help out on forums like this know, and don't expect for everyone to automatically know the correct jargon. That is why my comment was simply meant to inform, not criticize.

Yes, but do note that those drives do NOT "explicitly" go only into laptops. They can just as easily go into a PC case. Yes, I could have assumed you mean laptop, but way too often assumptions are wrong.

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If it is just for storage, have you considered an external drive or a NAS (network attached storage) drive? Then you don't lose function of the old drive, but still gain the extra space.

 

fair enuf. i thought "Internal Notebook Hard Drive" and "Notebook Laptop Hard Drive" was clear enuf, but if people are routinely patching those in to desktops, i suppose i shall have to clarify indeed.

altho....once again, it doesn't really matter HERE -- i have specified laptop model, etc etc, details in another thread where germane -- in THIS thread, however, i only asked (couple times) for opinions as to WHICH OF THESE 2 DRIVES IS FASTER. does no one have any opinion on THAT?

thanks again.

 

You did indeed ask which is faster - but that was far from your "only" question. You asked a bunch of other questions (excellent questions, BTW!) that ultimately are much more important than simply which drive is faster - especially because there are so many variables involved. And not just variables that apply exclusively the drives, but also to the computer they will be installed in, and their primary function.

You criticized me for not concluding/assuming or inferring from your comments that you were talking about a laptop. Fair enough. But note I provided you with lots of information that you should be able to use to determine for yourself, which drive would be better for you. The point there is, just because a drive may be faster in some or even all scenarios, that does not suggest it will result in any noticeable performance gains (to us mere human mortals).

Based on the fact you said this drive will be used as a "secondary drive" for "storage" and perhaps "movie streaming", I noted the following:

That last point is critical to your questions! But sadly, you have told us nothing about your "laptop".

For example, how much RAM is installed? Yes, you said "if 8GB". Am I to assume that means you do have 8GB in the laptop? Again, I don't like to assume anything.

What version of Windows? 32 or 64Bit?

What graphics solution? Integrated sharing system RAM? Or a dedicated card with its own RAM?

The faster rotation speed for the Seagate results in better latency times (4.2ms vs 5.56ms - smaller is better). So in that respect, the Seagate is faster. That means the Seagate can find the storage locations faster. But can you "see" a difference of 1.36ms? Nope. Or I sure can't.

The Toshiba has a much larger buffer of 128mb vs 16mb. That can easily result is faster performance, especially for larger files. That means during writes, the OS can hand off much larger chunks of data to the faster buffer, even though it take the drive longer to actually save the data to disk. A larger buffer improves reads too.

So IMO, any perceived performance differences will be negligible - at best.

With all that in mind, I am sticking to my guns here. Even "if" you do have 8GB of RAM installed, I would consider bumping that up to 16GB - especially if the graphics solution is stealing... err... "sharing" some of your system RAM, as typically happens with integrated graphics. If you already have a decent chunk of RAM, then a SSD is the way to go "if" disk performance is your priority. Other wise, go by warranty and price.

 

OK, no added RAM, no SSD. i have a new laptop, i'm debating "upgrading" one drive from another, soon-to-be-abandoned, and also **IN MY POSSESSION** laptop. anything involving "buy this, get that" is hereby vetoed!

the choice is; continue as is (seagate 750G) or swap in toshiba 1TB. as for my PC, specifics of the configuration, and further mechanics of the swap, let's take that back over to the original thread: Transferring Entire Hdd | MajorGeeks.Com Support Forums

here, i would again just like a sweeping sense of which drive is "faster". if it's complicated and shaded by the environment/applications, fine. but when i read those specs, it appears the toshiba is faster from pretty much ALL angles. am i MISREADING things, since the site's (prose) reviews seem to imply quite the reverse? (and again, toshiba 1/5 stars vs seagate 4/5! what thu...?!)

 

Ah. So you already have both drives. Got it. So try it and find out. Put the other in and see how it works.