My computer is dated but still runs good on everything but demanding video conversions. It can use 1 gb of either ddr 3200 or sdram. ATM I have 1 gb of sdram. What will give me the best bang for my buck? Going to a newer faster HD (it now has a samsung 120 gb 5200 speed with a 2 mb buffer) with a bigger buffer and faster, or going to 1 gb of 3200 ddr? Both will cost about the same. I intend to do both but for now which should I do first?
DW

No doubt about it: Go for a new HDD.

yup, you'll massive a huge speed increase!


get a western digital 8mb cache drive, i'm assuming your board doesn't have SATA becuase its got sdram in it

Definately the larger hard drive. 1GB is plenty of RAM for most systems (and considering that you tweak your system like mad to have as low RAM-useage as possible).

7200RPM and 8MB or 16MB will do WONDERS for your speed.

I vote high density, high speed hard drive.

It will change your computer from night to day.

youll definatly get a great change with a new hd, i agree with every one when they suggest a new hd, by getting a new hd with a high read and write speed, will always turn a pc into a happy pc

The new HD it is. Later I will get the ram. Then when this box wears out, I will build another system and this will go into it along with another gb of ram.
My 120 runs out of room. I am considering a 300 gb is this a decent size?

yes its a very nice size, you should be able to get a nice affordable 300gb at newegg.com,, for a great deal
just make sure your new hd, dosnt turn at 5400 rpm,, stick with a 7200 on a minimum if you can , of course if your mobo can handle it sata is always nice,

Honestly - if you're running SDRAM, forget about upgrading. It'll be way too expensive, and you're better off saving up for a newer system.

300GB 7200RPM will be plenty for you. You can always use the 120GB HD for storage from now on.

Western Digital 320GB are the sweet spot between size/price right now.

Actually jcarle, I am going to have to disagree with you on this one issue.

My brand new 7200.10 has serious speed... and it is for sale for under $100 at the egg right now. Here are some tests I ran on it.


Please note the drive is on a sata1 port and that it is my OS drive so downspikes in speed are probably the OS accessing it.

~edit~ the test shot has the model number, and by what I read their PATA version is just as fast as this one.

Read / Write specs are not the only thing to take a look at...

Check the I/O / CPU usage too when it comes to an older system.

CPU usage is actually more controller/driver based then HDD based.

Note the test shows CPU usage, seek times, and such on it. the dot map is a seek map.

~~And I definitely agree that transfer rates are nowhere near the only thing to look at when buying a HDD.

I dislike Seagate hard drive for their noise levels. Don't get me wrong, they're good hard drive, high quality and impressive performance at times. But the noise levels are higher and the real world difference between a WD 320 and a Seagate 320 are marginal.

I totally understand you there. The reason I switched back to seagate was WD playing the shuffle-the-warranty-period game. they burned me with that, bad enough im going to steer clear of WD for a while. My newest (remaining) WD is a WD2000BB I got when they were $100 new at the egg. You are right, they are quieter on average, but this particular drive seems just as 'loud' as my WD2000BB which is pretty quiet.

Gonna add another vote for a new HDD!
Im also a Western Digital man, I can never hear mine read/write etc, got 3, two 80GBs in Raid 0 and one 200GB store.

Also, My dads got a Duran 1.2ghz system with 512mb ram, was slowing down like hell, even with a re-format, got a nice new WD drive and the speed was like it was new again!

You got burned because you bought the 2MB version. Always always steer clear of 2MB hard drives. It's their "value" line of hard drives, which makes them comparable to Maxtors. 8MB/16MB hard drives are problem free and the RE/RE2 drives are unkilleable.

Actually I have been super pleased with my WD2000BB. It was my WD1200JB that I got burned by. I bought the OEM version back before it was common knowledge that WD was playing with their warranty periods. It came with a 1yr warranty. About 1 year and 2 months after I got it it had serious issues, which is uncommon for a WD. I ended up roundfiling it and being very steamed. Even the newegg page when I got it said it had a 3 year mfr warranty.

What would be wrong with a Raptor?.... 10kRPM and 16mb buffer

Well... their cost for one. Their power usage for another.

The 320GB drives jcarle and I are reccommending are actually comparable in speed to the raptors for most things, and a lot less $$ and more capacity to boot.

Well even the best companies have bad bouts. I tried installing a brand new Antec SP-350 power supply in one of my client's computer's last night. It was DOA. Never turned on. I had to RMA it back to my supplier. First time it's happened in the hundred or so I've installed.


I have two 74GB raptors, they're fast as hell, but man they're noisy. It's the only thing I can hear in my computer as everything else is silent.

My point was the warranty shuffle, not having a lemon or failed drive.

Lemons and failures are part of anything mass produced, it's a fact of life. The problem I have is when the companies get all shifty and shady on the whole issue or just hassle the crap out of you when you try to RMA something that is under warranty.
To me customer service is half the purchase. It is about half of the money you spend when you buy something.

VERY noisey, like a plane takign off (well not quite)

remember testing one, **** fast, but yes, very noisey.
I'd consider getting 2 rapters, just if and are with the noise...but the speed

My throughput for my raptors in RAID 0 is 140MB/sec...

man thats fast jcarle

On what did you connect those? Just on the motherboard SATA or is it an add-on card?

Now the sound of that makes it even more tempting! lol

SATAII onboard I take it?

My raptors are connected to my motherboard's Intel ICH7R RAID controller. It does support SATA II but raptors are SATA I with NCQ.

Similar but backward situation here (only with one HD instead of two)
my nForce4 non-ultra chipset is sata1 but the drive is sata2 which has NCQ in the standard. I haven't done the homework on this but I assume that NCQ is supported in this situation. could definitely be wrong.

The drive AND the controller must both support NCQ. So unless your SATA controller has NCQ in it's specifications, you're out of luck.

Use 2 hard drives

One hard drive for capture and editing. The other drive should be used for rendering after your editing is done.

This is the most efficient way for video editing. Using raid 0 is not better.

The rendering part takes forever with one drive.

On my box I am going to order a new pata 300 gb HD and use my 120 in an external enclosure I got.
Should be plenty of storage.
When my box wears out I will just build a newer faster box. When I build one I usuall dont get the latest technology, I get the one 1 or 2 teirs below. Cost effective and a very good boost in performance over what I got.

OK I am ready to order a HD. Any good links for good inexpensive HD?

You live in the US, why would you order from anywhere else but Newegg? You lucky son of ...

Looks like these are your choices:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....alue=353%3A7873

Don't get a recertified drive. Buy a new one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822148139

What do you guys think of this one?

and this case

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16811190099

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16811125471

Yeah, worst thing you could buy for in your computer. They sell them like new in Mexico, always I have to send them back to get me a new one... d*mn bastards...

Don’t look more, you got it .

Yip, gd choice.

What do you all think of the cases?

If you're going to go with an inexpensive case, make sure you swap out any power supply that comes with it. Get yourself a reliable Antec power supply (or another reliable brand).

A case is just metal. So it really doesn't matter what you get, it's a question of taste as long as you make sure that if you don't get a case that comes standard with a reliable power supply, you change it for one of a reliable manufacturer.

I was thinking about air flow and cooling.

Depends what you like to spend on it... And how much you want to put inside it...

Got a list of the hardware that you're going to be putting inside it?

ATM it has a sonydvd--pioneer dvd r--1024 mb ram--120 gb samsung HD soon to be changed to a 320 seagate--ati 5000 series video card 256 ddr--sb sound--amd 2100+.

Its old but runs good and will upgrade as needed or wanted

What kind of motherboard? Is an ATX or microATX motherboard?

Oh sorry its ATX

Antec Solution SLK3800B - Bigger

Antec Solution SLK1650B - Slightly smaller


Both will fit ATX mobos (it's a bit of a tight fit in the 1650), and both come with excellent Antec power supplies. If you're worried about expansion space, then I'd recommend the 3800, otherwise, the 1650 is an excellent case. I've built two system srecently with that case, and it's nothing short of great. The price is right too.

I looked them over and both look like very good cases.
Thanks
DW

You would like to take a look at the coolermaster cases too, they come without PSU so you can buy those from Antec or so.