Does the speed of the drive matter for the operating system ?

T

The Greater God

New member
Right now I'm pricing a system for my home studio, and I would like to know if you all think the speed of a hard drive matters when it comes to the operating system. I ask this because there are many high quality low rpm drives (5400) around on the net for about $50-$60 bux for 20gigs. My plan would be this: buy a low rpm drive for the operating system, and a high rpm drive (7200) for audio.

Thanks
 
5400 is fine for the operating system.....for the 7200 drive, buy a proven brand, like Maxtor Diamond Max.....
 
Gidge is correct with one caveot, I recently purchased two Maxtor 7200RPM drives only to discover Quantum Fireball drives in the boxes when I peeled them out. Maxtor aquired Quantum and is selling the old stock in Maxtor packages.
 
Track Rat said:
.... two Maxtor 7200RPM drives only to discover Quantum Fireball drives in the boxes when I peeled them out. Maxtor aquired Quantum and is selling the old stock in Maxtor packages.
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I wasn't aware of that information. Thank you.

spin
 
A faster hard drive absolutely matters as your OS drive. A great deal of money is wasted on incredibly fast CPUs, and this extra speed is useless when the CPU wasn't the slowest component in your computer to begin with.

You will notice a speed difference with a faster hard drive. You can cut a lot of corners with your computer. Most people spend more than they ought to on their CPU or video card, for instance - but don't cut any corners with your hard drive. That's the most important component of your computer.
 
Gidge said:
uh..did you read the question correctly?....
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Yes, here's the question:

Right now I'm pricing a system for my home studio, and I would like to know if you all think the speed of a hard drive matters when it comes to the operating system. I ask this because there are many high quality low rpm drives (5400) around on the net for about $50-$60 bux for 20gigs. My plan would be this: buy a low rpm drive for the operating system, and a high rpm drive (7200) for audio.
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And the answer is a resounding YES, the hard drive's speed matters with regards to your main OS drive. The overall speed of your system will increase far more dramatically when moving from a 5400RPM hard drive to a 7200RPM one, than it will by simply buying a faster CPU. Larger programs, like games, will load faster, and even smaller programs will load faster because a higher RPM drive requires less time to seek.

You can get a top quality IBM 20GB 7200RPM hard drive for $80 if you buy it off of the Internet. There's just no reason not to. And less expensive drives, such as one from Maxtor, should run you $10-15 less. And a 40 GB drive will only be about ten bucks more.
 
a faster CPU is far from useless with a 5400 rpm OS drive when recording is concerned.....
 
I guess it depends on what he's going to do with his computer. You can go with an el-cheapo 1GHz Celeron and probably never experience a dropout due to lack of CPU juice.

The problem with recording computers is that many of the adjustments you make in order to make recording faster, hurt the performance of the system in every other application.

So yeah. If he's doing nothing but recording on the computer, a fast CPU and fast audio drive are all he needs. If he's doing anything else, having a 7200RPM hard drive as his main system disk will give much larger overall performance gains.

I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that if he's trying to get a real "bang for the buck" system, maybe he can't afford to have a dedicated audio computer. I know I can't.
 
I have a computer for my home studio, too. It's also my computer for work, my computer for surfing the web, and my computer for games.

I would like to know if you all think the speed of a hard drive matters when it comes to the operating system.
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Yes. Next.
 
Next?..i think we both made our points....if the PC will be used for just recording, a 5400 rpm drive is fine...for other apps. a 7200 rpm is a good idea....with the cost difference being very minimal, it would be crazy NOT to get 7200 rpm (i concede there)......
 
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with buying a 7200 drive and getting every bit of speed possible out of your system. But I don't think the average user will see as drastic a difference as Eurythmic implies. And I think the link I posted lays it out pretty well.

Its like people who upgrade from a PIII 500 to a 1 gig and say "why isn't my PC 2 times faster?" Its not that simple, its the combination of all componants, and not every operation speeds up when you upgrade. So yes by all means get a 7200 drive if you like, buy as much speed as you can afford, but just don't be under the impression that having a 5400 system drive is going to make your system into a big barking dog ;)

I just bought a new data drive for my DAW - 80 gig, 7200 of course. But I also bought a new 40 gig for my MP3 server, 5400 - all it needs.
 
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