How important is hard drive speed in this day and age?

ShanPeyton

ShanPeyton

Member
Any thoughts on this as we make our way into 2015?

How much of a difference does having a 7200RPM drive make over a 5400 RPM drive with the machines currently being built right now. I am sure a SSD is the "right" answer. But just going after some thoughts here.
 
For no more than they cost, 7200 RPM and look at the controllers (not a big issue). Usually the 5200 RPM drives are going into the cheap laptop builds. I use a 5200 for tracking and you could probably get by, but I would not recommend. Just get the 7200 and not worry about it.
 
DM60 said:
For no more than they cost, 7200 RPM and look at the controllers (not a big issue). Usually the 5200 RPM drives are going into the cheap laptop builds. I use a 5200 for tracking and you could probably get by, but I would not recommend. Just get the 7200 and not worry about it.
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I wish it were that easy. I am rethinking the mac vs windows issue i have been struggling with. And it doesn't appear that a 7200 RPM drive is an option in their builds? Which is why i am asking. I also see most of their current builds are these fusion drives. Which combine SSD with HDD ? Stand to be corrected.

My computer struggle has been ongoing for . a year and half now. I need to shit or get off the pot as they say. And soon! I don't care what it is as long as technology no longer takes priority over my creativity EVERY freakin time i sit down to record something or mix an old project. :S
 
I'm not sure how the fusion drives work. I know of the hybrid, I have no personal experience with them. Maybe in Hybrid mode, the speed is less a factor.

Hold on for a few days see if other might have say. I have used 5200 as stated, but I am just capturing and not doing a lot of fetching and writing.
 
DM60 said:
I'm not sure how the fusion drives work. I know of the hybrid, I have no personal experience with them. Maybe in Hybrid mode, the speed is less a factor.

Hold on for a few days see if other might have say. I have used 5200 as stated, but I am just capturing and not doing a lot of fetching and writing.
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For sure! This is what i come here for. All the knowledge.
 
At work we put a few Fusion IO drives in a few machines. They're blindingly fast, just like an SSD. As far as I understand it, they're basically a SSD that's backed by a traditional drive. The SSD pretty much acts like a front-end cache for the platter drive.
 
Tadpui said:
At work we put a few Fusion IO drives in a few machines. They're blindingly fast, just like an SSD. As far as I understand it, they're basically a SSD that's backed by a traditional drive. The SSD pretty much acts like a front-end cache for the platter drive.
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Thats kind of what i read. Did you have to configure it to do that? Or does it just do it on it's own ?
 
Tadpui said:
At work we put a few Fusion IO drives in a few machines. They're blindingly fast, just like an SSD. As far as I understand it, they're basically a SSD that's backed by a traditional drive. The SSD pretty much acts like a front-end cache for the platter drive.
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I figured this was how they were using it as well to compensate for a slower drive. But it was just a guess.
 
I'd highly recommend the SSD, I recently installed the grand 3 and it loads the bosendorfer piano in less than 3 seconds which took around 60-70 seconds on my samsung spinpoint F1 HDD 7200RPM. There is a HUGE difference and it's very obvious, but make sure your MB fully supports sata III. I've noticed it when loading programs as well, especially lightroom, cubase and wavelab, everything is instant and very snappy, same thing with the internet and checking emails.
 
ShanPeyton said:
I wish it were that easy. I am rethinking the mac vs windows issue i have been struggling with.
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Are you moving towards mac?
What model are you looking at and what demands will you place upon it? Track count...virtual instruments, etc.

SSDs are mental compared to spinning discs and fusion drives seem to get good rep too but, depending what you're doing, neither may be necessary.

Tell us more.

If you're buying new just go with the stock drive.
You might find out it works just fine and ,if not, it's probably cheaper to buy an SSD from a third party anyway.

Also, replacing a drive is child's play on mac/OSX. No need for reinstalls or any of that bollocks. :)
 
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Steenamaroo said:
Are you moving towards mac?
What model are you looking at and what demands will you place upon it? Track count...virtual instruments, etc.

SSDs are mental compared to spinning discs and fusion drives seem to get good rep too but, depending what you're doing, neither may be necessary.

Tell us more.

If you're buying new just go with the stock drive.
You might find out it works just fine and ,if not, it's probably cheaper to buy an SSD from a third party anyway.

Also, replacing a drive is child's play on mac/OSX. No need for reinstalls or any of that bollocks. :)
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No need on Windows either. Done many times over the last 25 years.
 
DM60 said:
No need on Windows either. Done many times over the last 25 years.
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Do tell.

I'm fixing to upgrade to a 1TB HD and dreading the memory of the last time, which took about 12 hours to manually load everything back in. Loading samples took forever.
 
Another consideration for fast platter drives....the Western Digital VelociRaptor 10k RPM SATA2 drive.

I picked up a half dozen of them for the new DAW PC I'm configuring.
I don't like using very high capacity 1-2TB storage drives (which seems to be the rage these days), and prefer to use smaller capacities (though 300GB drives ain't all that small). I just don't like THAT much data jammed up on one massive drive.
I got six of the 300GB, and plan to put 3, maybe 4 of them in the computer and save 2 for spares/backups.
One will be for the OS, two for working audio projects(one primary, one backup) and the fourth one maybe for drum samples and what have you.

The WD VelociRaptor are top of the line enterprise drives....that will run for well over 1 million hours, and 5 year warranty.
I got these 300GB drives for only about $50-$60 each, brand new...mainly 'cuz everyone goes for the high capacity 1-2TB drives... :D...so these "smaller" ones are selling cheaper.
 
c7sus said:
Do tell.

I'm fixing to upgrade to a 1TB HD and dreading the memory of the last time, which took about 12 hours to manually load everything back in. Loading samples took forever.
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Steen is right, there is no Windows out of the box that will do this, but there are plenty of utilities. Clonezilla this is from Sourceforge, a source I have been using for 15 years. Good site.

Another I have used is Acronis. They have really good software, but it does cost.

Whether you pay for software or get the free utilities, I would not do a reinstall, what a PITA.
 
DM60 said:
Steen is right, there is no Windows out of the box that will do this, but there are plenty of utilities. Clonezilla this is from Sourceforge, a source I have been using for 15 years. Good site.

Another I have used is Acronis. They have really good software, but it does cost.

Whether you pay for software or get the free utilities, I would not do a reinstall, what a PITA.
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Windows has imaging software built in. When you put the windows disk in, you can restore from an image (either from a local or network drive).
 
jonny deep said:
Windows has imaging software built in. When you put the windows disk in, you can restore from an image (either from a local or network drive).
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That's good to know.
I'm not knocking anything. I'm just pointing out that the OP's job should be easy if he's going mac since so many people assume a reinstall is mandatory.
If the same is true of windows these days then that's cool.
 
Steenamaroo said:
That's good to know.
I'm not knocking anything. I'm just pointing out that the OP's job should be easy if he's going mac since so many people assume a reinstall is mandatory.
If the same is true of windows these days then that's cool.
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Just thought I'd let people know it's there if they want it!

One thing, though. When you restore the image, it sets the partition to be the same size as it was on the old drive, so if you increase drive size, you need to increase the partition size to fill up the new drive. I don't know if it causes an error if you switch to a smaller drive - worth looking into first.
 
jonny deep said:
Just thought I'd let people know it's there if they want it!

One thing, though. When you restore the image, it sets the partition to be the same size as it was on the old drive, so if you increase drive size, you need to increase the partition size to fill up the new drive. I don't know if it causes an error if you switch to a smaller drive - worth looking into first.
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Oh yeah, I see what you mean.
Fortunately OS X will clone your drive data to a new (bigger) drive without issue and maintain the single partition setup but, I think, it'll throw up errors if you try to clone to a smaller drive, even if used-space is still within the limits of the new drive.

I should check that some time - I'm not 100% certain but something's telling me I had issues when I downsized.
 
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