Advice Please: The Importance of Hard Drive RPMs

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

kony wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 21:29:03 GMT, CJT
wrote:



Alright, I'll concede there, but a 7200 will still provide a
very noticable performance increase over a 5400. Not just in
drive benchmarks, but in day to day computer usage.







I think the devil will be in the details. If you mostly just
browse the
Web, I doubt your disk will be exercised much. If you do a lot
of video
editing, you probably want something pretty fast -- most likely
RAID.
There's a whole range in between (and perhaps beyond).








Clueless.

Browser caches everything to disk, and reloads it all from this
cache until pages are refreshed unless brower is changed from
defaults.

The only time HDD speed doesn't matter much is when system has A)
Excess system memory to cache files B) Limited multitasking so
files are never flushed from this cache.







I stand by what I said. Watch your disk light some time. If it's
on a lot, then the disk speed might make a difference. If it hardly
ever flashes, then your drive's speed doesn't matter one bit.


Most folk's applications have a heck of a time getting from the
hard drive to RAM without flashing the LED.


No disagreement here, but for most folks that's a minuscule fraction of
the time they spend sitting in front of the computer.


Well, we could quibble over what 'minuscule' means in this context
but the reality of it is that most home users don't load up Word and
then leave it there all day while they, however frequently or
infrequently, pound out documents; they, e.g. families, are often a
competing set of users with applications going up and down rather
often and even a 'single' gamer doesn't necessarily load up just one
game for the day. And it really doesn't matter if 'mathematically'
the disk usage is a 'small percentage' of the total time because what
a user 'feels' and gauges things by is how long it takes between
'click-click' and whatever they expect to happen from it.

And that's before we even get to doing a couple of things
simultaneously and/or burning CD/DVDs, playing videos/MP3s, etc.



Even playing DVD images doesn't tax modern "slow" drives. Video
_editing_ might, but there you're trying to go (much) faster than
real time. I can play half a dozen .wav files (which are more data
intensive than MP3s) simultaneously and the disk LED hardly lights.

If you're playing uncompressed video, then I can understand why you
might want a fast drive. But that's not a very smart thing to do.


I didn't say any one thing would 'tax' the slower drive. I simply said
there would be a noticeable improvement with the faster one.

I don't know how you'd notice an improvement if it's already playing the
DVD image at normal speed. You wouldn't want the video to go any
faster.

And you could probably play an MP3 at the same time, but it might be
a bit odd with the DVD sound mixed in.

There's probably some pathological mix you can come up with that would
max things out, but I doubt it would qualify as a typical use. When
this thread started out, I said I was mostly speaking of typical office
applications -- things like video editing and some games _will_ benefit
from faster gear.


I have yet to see a user who didn't notice the difference between a
15 gig 5400 RPM drive and a 120 gig 7200 RPM drive. The later is
simply faster.





--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form .

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

JAD wrote:

Makes little difference unless


Your a benchmark watcher

your transferring huge files between partitions..and maybe drives
on a
regular basis, but there are other factors that effect data speed
between 2 physical drives other than HD RPM speed

Your using something other than OB IDE...SCSI drives (and sata, I
think- just started looking at moving to this format and can't give
you an opinion yet) would benefit or if your running a separate IDE
controller

If your running a file server....even this is not necessary.....lots
of memory can make up easily for HD rpm. I would look for
reliability,
warranty length, and if you want, the buffer size ( I don't see/feel
that its any faster 4 or 8)along with a good sale price

all my opinion, works for me sale gimmicks are every where






Indeed. Disk manufacturers do what they can to distinguish
their drives from those of their competitors. It's hard to
prove reliability, so they focus on speed. And speed isn't
bad -- it's just not necessarily worth a premium for small
performance increases once a "fast enough" threshold is passed.

If 5% of your time is spent waiting for your disk drive (and
I doubt it's even that high for many computer users), then
doubling its performance will only make about a 2.5% difference
in your overall throughput. Some people could save 2.5% of
their time by simply not worrying about such issues. g

Personally, I'd rather have slightly slower drives that were
cheaper, quieter and used less power (i.e. that generated less
heat and cost less to run, as well as perhaps being more reliable).
Where performance is an issue, RAID can be used,





Which just shot to hell the "less heat, quieter, cost less, and more
reliability" argument.




Huh? Build your RAID of such drives.



Two "less heat, quieter, cost less, and more reliable" drives raided
together to make up for the performance loss are no longer "less heat,
quieter, cost less, and more reliable" than the single faster one
they're replacing.


A RAID installation can be much faster than any drive you can buy, so
the comparison is an empty one.

I think you over estimate the utility of a dual disk RAID for normal use.

If you want performance then your best first bet is to go to the
inherently faster drive because that will give you the lion's share of
the increase with a "less heat, quieter, cost less, and more reliable"
solution.

If you can do it with a fast drive, but not a less fast one, then ok.

I have no idea what you're trying to say there.

You were suggesting the slower drives and then saying of you wanted
performance, the proposed reason for the faster drives you dislike, simply
RAID them (to make up for it). That means RAID two slower drives to make up
for the performance of the one but two 'sped up' slow ones are more heat,
more noise, more cost, and less reliable than one faster drive.

But that's a fairly narrow band of applicability.


and will likely
make a much bigger difference than increasing spindle RPM.





The theory would suggest so but it just doesn't manifest itself as
well in the real world use of it.




Gee, maybe you should tell EMC.



Surely they already know you don't get twice the performance with a
pair of raided drives.

They also know 10000 RPMs aren't double 5400.

The guys are down right geniuses.

Now, to be fair about it, when people see the 'difference' with a
7200 vs a 5400 it's usually combined with a rather dramatic increase
in capacity, which usually means a density increase, and, if it's
linear density, that improves the performance as well, but that part
is not due to the 'RPM'.


Probably right.

kony wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 07:38:26 GMT, CJT
wrote:



I suppose you're just a troll, since I already told you that the
browser caches all those files to the HDD when "browsing".

The actual amount of data involved in caching web pages is quite small.


Untrue, or at least only relatively small. I rebooted the system
I'm on right now, a few hours ago... since then the empty cache
has gained over 2000 files. a little over 20MB. It would've been
even larger but I have about 70% of the ad host servers and
shockwave flash blocked.


20 MB in a few hours is a pittance. And most of that is essentially
"write only" in the case of Web caching.

Point being, this is still a theory (that HDD speed isn't
signficant) that is far enough off that even a user with naked
eye can see the performance difference.



No matter how much you disagree, time and time again people
everywhere notice the difference between an old/slow HDD and
something modern/fast, not to mention benchmarks. A lot of
memory will reduce need for HDD access, but the two are
complimentary storage, not one a replacement for the other.

I guess we'll just have to disagree. I've stated my position.
If it makes you feel good to have a faster disk, and you've
convinced yourself you can detect the difference, that's ok
with me. There are people who claim they can detect the
difference when they change power cords on their stereos, too.


Ok, i can accept that we'll just disagree, and be glad that my
systems are all faster because of it.


Whatever.



Watch your disk activity light. If it's on a lot, you might
benefit from a faster disk. If it hardly ever blinks, there's
little harm buying a faster disk (except possibly $$), but you're
deluding yourself if you think it's going to make a big difference
in your ability to get things done.

If benchmarks are your "thing" then go for it.


No need to benchmark, it is plain as the nose on your face that
HDD speed is a primary bottleneck for many basic PC uses. It
matters more than CPU speed, FSB speed, memory bus speed, for a
lot of tasks. If you want to argue that slower HDD only causes a
few seconds additional wait, well sure that's true, a few seconds
over and over again, which is clearly not desired else we'd have
stuck with 80486 boxes instead of upgrading every so often.

I disagree. I've stated my position. And it's a few seconds a day,
not "over and over again" "for many basic PC uses."

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form .

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

JAD wrote:

Makes little difference unless


Your a benchmark watcher

your transferring huge files between partitions..and maybe drives
on a
regular basis, but there are other factors that effect data speed
between 2 physical drives other than HD RPM speed

Your using something other than OB IDE...SCSI drives (and sata, I
think- just started looking at moving to this format and can't give
you an opinion yet) would benefit or if your running a separate IDE
controller

If your running a file server....even this is not necessary.....lots
of memory can make up easily for HD rpm. I would look for
reliability,
warranty length, and if you want, the buffer size ( I don't see/feel
that its any faster 4 or 8)along with a good sale price

all my opinion, works for me sale gimmicks are every where







Indeed. Disk manufacturers do what they can to distinguish
their drives from those of their competitors. It's hard to
prove reliability, so they focus on speed. And speed isn't
bad -- it's just not necessarily worth a premium for small
performance increases once a "fast enough" threshold is passed.

If 5% of your time is spent waiting for your disk drive (and
I doubt it's even that high for many computer users), then
doubling its performance will only make about a 2.5% difference
in your overall throughput. Some people could save 2.5% of
their time by simply not worrying about such issues. g

Personally, I'd rather have slightly slower drives that were
cheaper, quieter and used less power (i.e. that generated less
heat and cost less to run, as well as perhaps being more reliable).
Where performance is an issue, RAID can be used,






Which just shot to hell the "less heat, quieter, cost less, and
more reliability" argument.





Huh? Build your RAID of such drives.




Two "less heat, quieter, cost less, and more reliable" drives raided
together to make up for the performance loss are no longer "less
heat, quieter, cost less, and more reliable" than the single faster
one they're replacing.



A RAID installation can be much faster than any drive you can buy, so
the comparison is an empty one.


I think you over estimate the utility of a dual disk RAID for normal use.

I wasn't limiting consideration to dual disks.

If you want performance then your best first bet is to go to the
inherently faster drive because that will give you the lion's share
of the increase with a "less heat, quieter, cost less, and more
reliable" solution.


If you can do it with a fast drive, but not a less fast one, then ok.


I have no idea what you're trying to say there.

If one fast drive will satisfy your requirements, but one "slow"
drive won't, then I have no quibble with deploying the fast one
rather than the "slow" one.


You were suggesting the slower drives and then saying of you wanted
performance, the proposed reason for the faster drives you dislike,
simply RAID them (to make up for it). That means RAID two slower drives
to make up for the performance of the one but two 'sped up' slow ones
are more heat, more noise, more cost, and less reliable than one faster
drive.


I didn't say two.

But that's a fairly narrow band of applicability.


and will likely
make a much bigger difference than increasing spindle RPM.






The theory would suggest so but it just doesn't manifest itself as
well in the real world use of it.





Gee, maybe you should tell EMC.




Surely they already know you don't get twice the performance with a
pair of raided drives.


They also know 10000 RPMs aren't double 5400.


The guys are down right geniuses.

Now, to be fair about it, when people see the 'difference' with a
7200 vs a 5400 it's usually combined with a rather dramatic
increase in capacity, which usually means a density increase, and,
if it's linear density, that improves the performance as well, but
that part is not due to the 'RPM'.


Probably right.






--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form .

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

kony wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 21:29:03 GMT, CJT
wrote:



Alright, I'll concede there, but a 7200 will still provide a
very noticable performance increase over a 5400. Not just in
drive benchmarks, but in day to day computer usage.








I think the devil will be in the details. If you mostly just
browse the
Web, I doubt your disk will be exercised much. If you do a lot
of video
editing, you probably want something pretty fast -- most likely
RAID.
There's a whole range in between (and perhaps beyond).









Clueless.

Browser caches everything to disk, and reloads it all from this
cache until pages are refreshed unless brower is changed from
defaults.

The only time HDD speed doesn't matter much is when system has A)
Excess system memory to cache files B) Limited multitasking so
files are never flushed from this cache.








I stand by what I said. Watch your disk light some time. If it's
on a lot, then the disk speed might make a difference. If it hardly
ever flashes, then your drive's speed doesn't matter one bit.


Most folk's applications have a heck of a time getting from the
hard drive to RAM without flashing the LED.


No disagreement here, but for most folks that's a minuscule
fraction of
the time they spend sitting in front of the computer.


Well, we could quibble over what 'minuscule' means in this context
but the reality of it is that most home users don't load up Word and
then leave it there all day while they, however frequently or
infrequently, pound out documents; they, e.g. families, are often a
competing set of users with applications going up and down rather
often and even a 'single' gamer doesn't necessarily load up just one
game for the day. And it really doesn't matter if 'mathematically'
the disk usage is a 'small percentage' of the total time because
what a user 'feels' and gauges things by is how long it takes
between 'click-click' and whatever they expect to happen from it.

And that's before we even get to doing a couple of things
simultaneously and/or burning CD/DVDs, playing videos/MP3s, etc.

Even playing DVD images doesn't tax modern "slow" drives. Video
_editing_ might, but there you're trying to go (much) faster than
real time. I can play half a dozen .wav files (which are more data
intensive than MP3s) simultaneously and the disk LED hardly lights.

If you're playing uncompressed video, then I can understand why you
might want a fast drive. But that's not a very smart thing to do.

I didn't say any one thing would 'tax' the slower drive. I simply said
there would be a noticeable improvement with the faster one.

I don't know how you'd notice an improvement if it's already playing the
DVD image at normal speed. You wouldn't want the video to go any
faster.

And you could probably play an MP3 at the same time, but it might be
a bit odd with the DVD sound mixed in.

There's probably some pathological mix you can come up with that would
max things out, but I doubt it would qualify as a typical use.

It would seem you're fixated on some notion that it's only 'noticeable' if
the hard drive is perpetually pedal to the metal with the LED bright, solar
flare, red but that simply isn't the case.

You can propose scenarios all day long and point out what you perceive as
'flaws' with what is simply an attempt to explain in some small way WHY
people notice it but the plain fact is that they DO; and easily.


When
this thread started out, I said I was mostly speaking of typical office

As I said, I don't think the office use you described is 'typical' of most
users.

applications -- things like video editing and some games _will_ benefit
from faster gear.


I have yet to see a user who didn't notice the difference between a
15 gig 5400 RPM drive and a 120 gig 7200 RPM drive. The later is
simply faster.

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

JAD wrote:

Makes little difference unless


Your a benchmark watcher

your transferring huge files between partitions..and maybe
drives on a
regular basis, but there are other factors that effect data speed
between 2 physical drives other than HD RPM speed

Your using something other than OB IDE...SCSI drives (and sata, I
think- just started looking at moving to this format and can't give
you an opinion yet) would benefit or if your running a separate IDE
controller

If your running a file server....even this is not
necessary.....lots
of memory can make up easily for HD rpm. I would look for
reliability,
warranty length, and if you want, the buffer size ( I don't
see/feel
that its any faster 4 or 8)along with a good sale price

all my opinion, works for me sale gimmicks are every where








Indeed. Disk manufacturers do what they can to distinguish
their drives from those of their competitors. It's hard to
prove reliability, so they focus on speed. And speed isn't
bad -- it's just not necessarily worth a premium for small
performance increases once a "fast enough" threshold is passed.

If 5% of your time is spent waiting for your disk drive (and
I doubt it's even that high for many computer users), then
doubling its performance will only make about a 2.5% difference
in your overall throughput. Some people could save 2.5% of
their time by simply not worrying about such issues. g

Personally, I'd rather have slightly slower drives that were
cheaper, quieter and used less power (i.e. that generated less
heat and cost less to run, as well as perhaps being more reliable).
Where performance is an issue, RAID can be used,







Which just shot to hell the "less heat, quieter, cost less, and
more reliability" argument.






Huh? Build your RAID of such drives.





Two "less heat, quieter, cost less, and more reliable" drives raided
together to make up for the performance loss are no longer "less
heat, quieter, cost less, and more reliable" than the single faster
one they're replacing.




A RAID installation can be much faster than any drive you can buy, so
the comparison is an empty one.



I think you over estimate the utility of a dual disk RAID for normal use.

I wasn't limiting consideration to dual disks.

Well, I was limiting it to things a 'typical' user might do.


If you want performance then your best first bet is to go to the
inherently faster drive because that will give you the lion's share
of the increase with a "less heat, quieter, cost less, and more
reliable" solution.



If you can do it with a fast drive, but not a less fast one, then ok.


I have no idea what you're trying to say there.

If one fast drive will satisfy your requirements, but one "slow"
drive won't, then I have no quibble with deploying the fast one
rather than the "slow" one.

Oh, I see. That's certainly fair.

In this case the 'requirement' being discussed is a 'faster system' and
most people will draw that conclusion when they observe their apps load
faster from a faster hard drive; whether it's then idle for 95% of the
remaining time being irrelevant to that perception.

How *much* 'fast' they get will be primarily a compromise with cost.

From your comments I gather that the app load time isn't of much concern,
or at least not enough to counter the others you expressed, but most users
I run across can get down right obsessed with it and that often the very
reason they're asking 'how can I speed this thing up?' and the example they
use. Look click-click Word at how long it takes!

You were suggesting the slower drives and then saying of you wanted
performance, the proposed reason for the faster drives you dislike,
simply RAID them (to make up for it). That means RAID two slower
drives to make up for the performance of the one but two 'sped up'
slow ones are more heat, more noise, more cost, and less reliable than
one faster drive.


I didn't say two.

Well, 'one' isn't a RAID and more than two is even worse in the "more heat,
more noise, more cost, and less reliable" department.

But that's a fairly narrow band of applicability.


and will likely
make a much bigger difference than increasing spindle RPM.


The theory would suggest so but it just doesn't manifest itself as
well in the real world use of it.



Gee, maybe you should tell EMC.


Surely they already know you don't get twice the performance with a
pair of raided drives.



They also know 10000 RPMs aren't double 5400.


The guys are down right geniuses.

Now, to be fair about it, when people see the 'difference' with a
7200 vs a 5400 it's usually combined with a rather dramatic
increase in capacity, which usually means a density increase, and,
if it's linear density, that improves the performance as well, but
that part is not due to the 'RPM'.


Probably right.

"Folkert Rienstra" wrote in message ...
Please people, show some restraint and learn to ignore this TROLL.
This is another very obvious troll question.

Hey moron. Your immature post only demonstrated that *you* are the
troll. Things were fine until you showed up.

Now go harass someone else. There are adults here, and I am tired of
you starting trouble whenever I post.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

CJT wrote:

JAD wrote:

Makes little difference unless


Your a benchmark watcher

your transferring huge files between partitions..and maybe
drives on a
regular basis, but there are other factors that effect data speed
between 2 physical drives other than HD RPM speed

Your using something other than OB IDE...SCSI drives (and sata, I
think- just started looking at moving to this format and can't
give you an opinion yet) would benefit or if your running a
separate IDE controller

If your running a file server....even this is not
necessary.....lots
of memory can make up easily for HD rpm. I would look for
reliability,
warranty length, and if you want, the buffer size ( I don't
see/feel
that its any faster 4 or 8)along with a good sale price

all my opinion, works for me sale gimmicks are every where








Indeed. Disk manufacturers do what they can to distinguish
their drives from those of their competitors. It's hard to
prove reliability, so they focus on speed. And speed isn't
bad -- it's just not necessarily worth a premium for small
performance increases once a "fast enough" threshold is passed.

If 5% of your time is spent waiting for your disk drive (and
I doubt it's even that high for many computer users), then
doubling its performance will only make about a 2.5% difference
in your overall throughput. Some people could save 2.5% of
their time by simply not worrying about such issues. g

Personally, I'd rather have slightly slower drives that were
cheaper, quieter and used less power (i.e. that generated less
heat and cost less to run, as well as perhaps being more reliable).
Where performance is an issue, RAID can be used,







Which just shot to hell the "less heat, quieter, cost less, and
more reliability" argument.






Huh? Build your RAID of such drives.





Two "less heat, quieter, cost less, and more reliable" drives raided
together to make up for the performance loss are no longer "less
heat, quieter, cost less, and more reliable" than the single faster
one they're replacing.




A RAID installation can be much faster than any drive you can buy, so
the comparison is an empty one.



I think you over estimate the utility of a dual disk RAID for normal
use.

I wasn't limiting consideration to dual disks.

Well, I was limiting it to things a 'typical' user might do.


If you want performance then your best first bet is to go to the
inherently faster drive because that will give you the lion's share
of the increase with a "less heat, quieter, cost less, and more
reliable" solution.



If you can do it with a fast drive, but not a less fast one, then ok.


I have no idea what you're trying to say there.

If one fast drive will satisfy your requirements, but one "slow"
drive won't, then I have no quibble with deploying the fast one
rather than the "slow" one.

Oh, I see. That's certainly fair.

In this case the 'requirement' being discussed is a 'faster system' and
most people will draw that conclusion when they observe their apps load
faster from a faster hard drive; whether it's then idle for 95% of the
remaining time being irrelevant to that perception.

How *much* 'fast' they get will be primarily a compromise with cost.

From your comments I gather that the app load time isn't of much concern,
or at least not enough to counter the others you expressed, but most users
I run across can get down right obsessed with it and that often the very
reason they're asking 'how can I speed this thing up?' and the example
they use. Look click-click Word at how long it takes!

You were suggesting the slower drives and then saying of you wanted
performance, the proposed reason for the faster drives you dislike,
simply RAID them (to make up for it). That means RAID two slower
drives to make up for the performance of the one but two 'sped up'
slow ones are more heat, more noise, more cost, and less reliable than
one faster drive.


I didn't say two.

Well, 'one' isn't a RAID and more than two is even worse in the "more
heat, more noise, more cost, and less reliable" department.

3 in a RAID-5 configuration is worse in the "more heat, more noise, more
cost" department, but not in the "less reliable" department. But then your
write performance goes down the tubes unless you're using a relatively
expensive RAID controller.

But that's a fairly narrow band of applicability.


and will likely
make a much bigger difference than increasing spindle RPM.


The theory would suggest so but it just doesn't manifest itself as
well in the real world use of it.



Gee, maybe you should tell EMC.


Surely they already know you don't get twice the performance with a
pair of raided drives.



They also know 10000 RPMs aren't double 5400.


The guys are down right geniuses.

Now, to be fair about it, when people see the 'difference' with a
7200 vs a 5400 it's usually combined with a rather dramatic
increase in capacity, which usually means a density increase, and,
if it's linear density, that improves the performance as well, but
that part is not due to the 'RPM'.


Probably right.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 09:34:10 GMT, CJT
wrote:


Even playing DVD images doesn't tax modern "slow" drives. Video
_editing_ might, but there you're trying to go (much) faster than
real time. I can play half a dozen .wav files (which are more data
intensive than MP3s) simultaneously and the disk LED hardly lights.

If you're playing uncompressed video, then I can understand why you
might want a fast drive. But that's not a very smart thing to do.


I didn't say any one thing would 'tax' the slower drive. I simply said
there would be a noticeable improvement with the faster one.

I don't know how you'd notice an improvement if it's already playing the
DVD image at normal speed. You wouldn't want the video to go any
faster.

Some software DVD players (application) and likely many more in
the future, will have post-processing quality settings to improve
playback. The longer it takes data to get to CPU, the less
post-processing can be done.


And you could probably play an MP3 at the same time, but it might be
a bit odd with the DVD sound mixed in.

What about multiple system on a LAN? MP3 is low enough bitrate
that LAN is a good option.
I may have a few dozen mp3 cued up, playing on one system and end
up doing something else on another system storing those MP3.
Usually the data is on different HDDs, but not always.



There's probably some pathological mix you can come up with that would
max things out, but I doubt it would qualify as a typical use. When
this thread started out, I said I was mostly speaking of typical office
applications -- things like video editing and some games _will_ benefit
from faster gear.


It's not always about "max". The entire system is waiting for
data when it makes a read request. In other words, your P4 (or
whatever) CPU will get less work done with a slower hard drive.
Your browser's pages will finish displaying slower. Game levels
take longer to load. Backups take longer. Etc, etc, etc, and
most of this time you're sitting there waiting for the hard
drive, not any other part of the system.



I have yet to see a user who didn't notice the difference between a
15 gig 5400 RPM drive and a 120 gig 7200 RPM drive. The later is
simply faster.

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 09:41:26 GMT, CJT
wrote:

kony wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 07:38:26 GMT, CJT
wrote:



I suppose you're just a troll, since I already told you that the
browser caches all those files to the HDD when "browsing".

The actual amount of data involved in caching web pages is quite small.


Untrue, or at least only relatively small. I rebooted the system
I'm on right now, a few hours ago... since then the empty cache
has gained over 2000 files. a little over 20MB. It would've been
even larger but I have about 70% of the ad host servers and
shockwave flash blocked.


20 MB in a few hours is a pittance. And most of that is essentially
"write only" in the case of Web caching.

Yes, but it does effect the performance. It's not 20MB that's
the issue, it's that so many web pages have dozens of tiny files.


Ok, i can accept that we'll just disagree, and be glad that my
systems are all faster because of it.


Whatever.

My "opinion" is not unique, plenty of people upgrade their drive
or choose a faster drive for the performance benefit.




I disagree. I've stated my position. And it's a few seconds a day,
not "over and over again" "for many basic PC uses."

It's only a few seconds if you only load a few things per day.
Even starting a single appliation like MS Work can take a couple
seconds longer with an old, slow hard drive. In an office
environment where worker only uses a half-dozen applications that
is not such as issue as with a home user that has enough
experience using their system and the 'net to be thinking ahead,
to what their next command will be while wait for the app to
load... instead of being able to start the next task already. Of
course this is assuming only a single HDD, I suggest not only one
fast HDD but multiples.