Faster hard drive for OS or recorded data?

S

sibannac

New member
I've been searching to the answer to this question for a while and can't find anything. Sorry if it's been asked or answered in the past.

I'm working on a new build and have 2 hard drives for the project. One of the drives is a 5400 and the other a 7200. My question is this, which drive to use for the OS/DAW and which one for the recorded data? Should I just stop being so cheap and buy another 7200, or am I fine with what I already have? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated...
 
It completely depends on what kind of work you're doing.
The amount of recorded audio and samples being accessed is what's important.

For what I do I wouldn't consider having a 5400 drive anywhere in the setup.
It may do fine for what you're demands but given that even the fastest mechanical drives are being passed over for SSD now, you may as well get the fastest you can.

Which way round to use your two current drives? Again, it depends how much data audio you plan to record/access but I think I'd want my system on the 7200.
If the 5400 isn't up to the task of secondary drive, at least it's easy to replace down the road. ;)

If you can get away with having a small system drive, take a look at SSDs.
Some of the no-so-cutting-edge models are still perform much better than mechanical drives, and the prices are coming down.
You don't have to worry so much about buying used because there are no moving parts.

You could get an 80gb intel x25m or a 60gb ocz vertex 2 for not a lot of money.
I run two of the latter and they are incredible.
 
Steenamaroo said:
It completely depends on what kind of work you're doing.
The amount of recorded audio and samples being accessed is what's important.

For what I do I wouldn't consider having a 5400 drive anywhere in the setup.
It may do fine for what you're demands but given that even the fastest mechanical drives are being passed over for SSD now, you may as well get the fastest you can.

Which way round to use your two current drives? Again, it depends how much data audio you plan to record/access but I think I'd want my system on the 7200.
If the 5400 isn't up to the task of secondary drive, at least it's easy to replace down the road. ;)

If you can get away with having a small system drive, take a look at SSDs.
Some of the no-so-cutting-edge models are still perform much better than mechanical drives, and the prices are coming down.
You don't have to worry so much about buying used because there are no moving parts.

You could get an 80gb intel x25m or a 60gb ocz vertex 2 for not a lot of money.
I run two of the latter and they are incredible.
Click to expand...

Thank for the speedy reply! I'm on a tight budget, the wifey just gave approval for the build and my intention was to try and get away with using some of what I own already. I will take a look at the ssd drive pricing, maybe I can fit it in somewhere.
 
Ok, I see.
Well, if you push for an SSD that's great, but based on what you have I'd put the 7200 in as the system drive on the basis that upgrading a second drive isn't much hassle, should you choose to do that in the future.

Who knows. What you have may work just fine. :)
 
Are these both relatively new drives? The reason I ask is that audio recording tends to involve almost entirely sequential access to large stripes of the disk at a time, which means that RPM tends to have a smaller effect on track count than areal density. Since platter count tends to be pretty much limited by the physical height of the drive, this basically translates to "The bigger the drive, the faster it will be, at least for audio purposes."

For audio purposes, once the sequential read/write throughput exceeds a certain point, none of it really matters, and we crossed that line many, many years ago, so if both drives are new, you're unlikely to hit the throughput limit of a current-generation 5400 RPM desktop-sized hard drive when doing recording (hundreds of simultaneous tracks) anyway. Thus, if they are both new drives, I would use the 7200 RPM drive for your system drive. The lower latency will make the system more responsive overall, with faster app launches, etc., whereas the slower RPM should have almost zero impact on your audio recording unless you keep the drive mostly full and never wipe it. (Don't do that. Excessive fragmentation is bad, m'kay?)

However, if you're comparing two old drives or an old drive and a new drive, I'd probably favor the newer drive for audio purposes, both because of life expectancy and because of the higher areal density of the newer drives, regardless of which one spins at a higher RPM.
 
dgatwood said:
Are these both relatively new drives? The reason I ask is that audio recording tends to involve almost entirely sequential access to large stripes of the disk at a time, which means that RPM tends to have a smaller effect on track count than areal density. Since platter count tends to be pretty much limited by the physical height of the drive, this basically translates to "The bigger the drive, the faster it will be, at least for audio purposes."

For audio purposes, once the sequential read/write throughput exceeds a certain point, none of it really matters, and we crossed that line many, many years ago, so if both drives are new, you're unlikely to hit the throughput limit of a current-generation 5400 RPM desktop-sized hard drive when doing recording (hundreds of simultaneous tracks) anyway. Thus, if they are both new drives, I would use the 7200 RPM drive for your system drive. The lower latency will make the system more responsive overall, with faster app launches, etc., whereas the slower RPM should have almost zero impact on your audio recording unless you keep the drive mostly full and never wipe it. (Don't do that. Excessive fragmentation is bad, m'kay?)

However, if you're comparing two old drives or an old drive and a new drive, I'd probably favor the newer drive for audio purposes, both because of life expectancy and because of the higher areal density of the newer drives, regardless of which one spins at a higher RPM.
Click to expand...

I just had a look through my box of computing past, I've actually got a 2 drives that I could pick from. My goal is to only to have to purchase one drive rather than two. I could put the money I would save into a better processor or something... I just think that any money saved could be better spent elsewhere in the build. If its a better idea to just buy another drive then I will..

I'm going to be buying a Seagate Barracuda in my build which I've linked below. Also, I'll list the drives I already have. This build isn't set in stone, and I'm certainly open to any criticism or recommendations that anyone may have. I want this to be right..

Drives I have:

Western Digital WD Blue WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - Made in 2004

Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB 5400RPM SATA 3Gbps 32MB Cache 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive Mfr P/N WD10EADS-11M2B3 - Made in 2010

Build: (It will not let me add links add http: to links to make them work)

PCPartPicker part list: //pcpartpicker.com/p/OPiU
Price breakdown by merchant: //pcpartpicker.com/p/OPiU/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: //pcpartpicker.com/p/OPiU/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS8900 Quiet CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($82.55 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($53.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($69.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Diablotek CPA-6170 ATX Mid Tower Case ($53.79 @ TigerDirect)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($15.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $556.26
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-04-07 10:49 EDT-0400)
 
Ok, I'd put the tb 7200 drive in as storage and the 80gb 7200 drive in as system.

Just be certain that 80gb is enough for you as a system drive.
I have a 60gb drive as the system drive and to be honest, it really can be a bit of a juggle sometimes.

If it's going to be an issue, spend your money on a >100gb 7200 for system and use the large 5400 as storage.
 
dgatwood said:
Are these both relatively new drives? The reason I ask is that audio recording tends to involve almost entirely sequential access to large stripes of the disk at a time, which means that RPM tends to have a smaller effect on track count than areal density. Since platter count tends to be pretty much limited by the physical height of the drive, this basically translates to "The bigger the drive, the faster it will be, at least for audio purposes."
Click to expand...

I understood some of these words.
 
For sequential reads, the 5400 RPM drive above is about 22% faster than the 7200 RPM drive. For random access, based on the seek times and rotational latency, I'd expect it to be about 16% slower on average. In other words, roughly a wash. Use the 5400 RPM drive for audio; it's bigger and newer. :)
 
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