Harddisk upgrade

sharathjeppu · 26th July 2006, 15:21

I plan to add a second hard disk to my present home PC configuration. To pick up the right Harddisk, I need some information on compatibility.

My system has a SATA-I controller. I need to know if a SATA-II harddisk will work with a SATA controller (instead of a SATA-II controller).

Secondly, there is the option of a 7200 rpm disk vs. a 10000 rpm disk. The latency and the seek times are nearly half in the faster drive. Will that make a big difference in the performance. I have a 3.0 GHz P4 system with 1.5 GB of RAM.

zen · 27th July 2006, 13:58

Your SATA-II drive will mostly work with the SATA-I controller but you will lose out on the benefits of a SATA-II drive (ie you will only get transfer speeds that SATA-I supports). There is usually a jumper setting on the hard disk which makes the controller treat a SATA-II drive as a SATA-I.

For example, http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/di...sata_lock.html

cmoraes · 27th July 2006, 16:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by sharathjeppu

Will that make a big difference in the performance. I have a 3.0 GHz P4 system with 1.5 GB of RAM.

Well, it depends. For normal use including occasional gaming, you wouldn't notice any difference. These 10,000 rpm disks really standout if you are doing some really disk i/o intensive work - like editing large video or manipulating sound files. And in your case, since you have 1.5 GB of RAM ... the system should hardly be using the swap file - so no gains of putting the swap file on a faster drive.

condor · 27th July 2006, 16:45

For a home PC, you could go with the 7200 rpm drive. You already have a pretty fast processor and good amount of memory. I dont see too many benefits of using a 10K rpm drive.

26th July 2006, 15:21	#1
sharathjeppu BHPian Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Bangalore Posts: 159 Thanked: 4 Times	Harddisk upgrade I plan to add a second hard disk to my present home PC configuration. To pick up the right Harddisk, I need some information on compatibility. My system has a SATA-I controller. I need to know if a SATA-II harddisk will work with a SATA controller (instead of a SATA-II controller). Secondly, there is the option of a 7200 rpm disk vs. a 10000 rpm disk. The latency and the seek times are nearly half in the faster drive. Will that make a big difference in the performance. I have a 3.0 GHz P4 system with 1.5 GB of RAM.
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27th July 2006, 13:58	#2
zen BHPian Join Date: Feb 2004 Posts: 74 Thanked: 18 Times	Your SATA-II drive will mostly work with the SATA-I controller but you will lose out on the benefits of a SATA-II drive (ie you will only get transfer speeds that SATA-I supports). There is usually a jumper setting on the hard disk which makes the controller treat a SATA-II drive as a SATA-I. For example, http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/di...sata_lock.html
	() Thanks

27th July 2006, 16:45	#4
condor Distinguished - BHPian Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Speed-brkr City Posts: 15,864 Thanked: 16,014 Times View My Garage	For a home PC, you could go with the 7200 rpm drive. You already have a pretty fast processor and good amount of memory. I dont see too many benefits of using a 10K rpm drive.
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