HDD Make my PC run faster?

[admin_exported]

Hey

I have a 5 year old 250gb 7200rpm drive and was thinking about getting a F3 samsung spin point, people are saying these are just below a SSD for performance. would my boot up times speed up.

And also if I am streaming, I have a 1tb external hooked up to my pc, but would I get better results, less stutter over a wired network if I used a HDD attached to my PC which is fast and be able to move data faster.

Or do I not know what I am talking about

 

[Andrew Everard]

This axe is over 70 years old, and still cuts like new. Mind you in that time it's had four new handles and three new heads...

 

[Anonymous]

Uh ....... So is that a sitting on the fence answer?

 

[Andrew Everard]

No, it's a 'by now you've changed so many elements of your computer I no longer have any idea what's affecting performance, and I suspect neither do you' answer.

 

[Anonymous]

I have only bought a streamer and a graphics card and barebones quadcore.

I just thought that people are raving about this F3 1TB Spinpoint for 37.00 it might be worth while.

I ask questions about gigabit media streamers... Get it right andrew... LOL

 

[chebby]

Andrew Everard:This axe is over 70 years old, and still cuts like new. Mind you in that time it's had four new handles and three new heads...

Or 'Look after your broom'.

 

[Anonymous]

Anyone just give me a yes or no answer?

Thanks

 

[Andrew Everard]

Yes. Or no. The physical speed of the drive will have little effect on the boot-up speed of a computer, and I am afraid I don't understand your second question - ie the distinction between a hard disc attached to your computer and an HDD attached to your computer - but I suspect the network may have more effect on the stuttering than how the drive is connected to the computer.

 

[Lee H]

Or get a Mac and take boot up largely out of the equation or wait for this...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11430069

 

[Anonymous]

OK thanks andrew, and that was a good read Lee.

What I meant is, if all my media was on a new fast HDD, would my AC Ryan be able to read it faster and there for get the data from my pc faster so less chance of stutter. you dont have to answer that if its a stupid question.

 

[Andrew Everard]

canada16:What I meant is, if all my media was on a new fast HDD, would my AC Ryan be able to read it faster and there for get the data from my pc faster so less chance of stutter. you dont have to answer that if its a stupid question.

Again I think the problem is more network related than to do with the choice of HDD. You might do better with a NAS device hooked up to the network router, rather than relying on one connected to your PC.

 

[Anonymous]

I have a buffalo linkstation

I asked someone to look at it, as the torrent thing on it was not working right, and whilst at his house he kicked it off his desk.

So he gave me some money for a new HDD as it broke, but he still has not given it back to me yet. that has a gigabit lan, also I just got a 8 port gigabit port, and just bought a gigabit lan pci card for my pc, as the motherboard is only 10/100.

But the AC RYAN is only able to do 10/100 anyway, just upgraded everything for when I get a better streamer.

 

[Dazmb]

If you have XP, disable pre-fetch and disable any services/apps running that don't need to be. Keeping PC's 'clean' can make a huge dufference to boot and running performance. I talk as a 7+ year former desktop support veteran.

 

[Anonymous]

Your hard drive won't be the slowest bit of audio streaming, it will most likely be the wifi, possibly low on RAM, possibly worth changing your music app, or possibly to do with other processes going on that distract your computer from streaming files. F3 is a great HDD tho, and will generally speed up your computer, but I doubt it will speed up streaming as the audio data will probably stay in RAM.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Agreed: with all computers, keeping start-up as clean as possible is the best way of speeding things up.

 

[Anonymous]

Oh also, a new HDD won't make your PC or apps start up much quicker unless the operating system & apps are installed on the new HDD i.e. you would have to reinstall windows

 

[hammill]

peteAllen:Oh also, a new HDD won't make your PC or apps start up much quicker unless the operating system & apps are installed on the new HDD i.e. you would have to reinstall windows Although in my experience, that act of reinstalling the software will in itself speed things up

 

[Anonymous]

hammill:peteAllen:Oh also, a new HDD won't make your PC or apps start up much quicker unless the operating system & apps are installed on the new HDD i.e. you would have to reinstall windows Although in my experience, that act of reinstalling the software will in itself speed things up

Yes indeed, windows gets clogged up. If you really want to improve performance, don't use wifi at all, get a direct network connection, rebuild your pc with a fast SSD (80-100Gb at most because smaller drives are quicker to read from) with windows & apps installed on that, a second (slower) HDD for everything else, fast new motherboard, quad core processor to deal with multitasking, 6Gb ram. And then don't touch it for anything except audio. ;D

 

[Anonymous]

I am going to install this pci card, and maybe do a clean instal as well, as added lots. programs and uninstalled stuff bla bla.

That might help eh!

Sorry to be a pain, maybe your right, just need a media player that can get more closer to gigabit speeds that the ac ryan can.

Or just get my NAS back, one day.

 

[Anonymous]

The other thing is your router, is it gigabit?

 

[Anonymous]

I thought the Sky routers are backward compatible? a gigabit would not bottleneck on that would it?

Thanks for your help.

True gigabit routers are expensive

 

[Anonymous]

Ah right, if you have a recent sky router it will be a gigabit router I believe. So connecting both NAS & PC directly by cable without wifi should be fast.

 

[Anonymous]

I got sky 2 years ago, its a dark grey netgear one. http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/attachments/sky-news-announcements/520d1195561973-sky-send-us-both-new-routers-review-netgearv2router.jpg

I only use it for wifi for my small netbook, but sky confirmed its only a G router. not a N router. But I was told thats only for wireless speeds not wired.

I could be wrong, as I pretend like I know what I am talking about,but I really dont

 

[Xanderzdad]

Although as previously stated there are a whole host of factors that affect your PC speed - with regard to HDD actually a larger disk is normally faster as it employs denser architecture and therefore the magnetic 'stripes' are closer.

Also modern HDD have better controllers affecting their speed. Finally look at the buffer, again modern HDD have 16Mb or higher to buffer the information.

I am actually using a 5200rpm 'Green' 2Tb HDD and although it spins slower and is therefore virtually silent (the reasoin I bought it!) it is actually 30% faster than my previous 740Gb 7200rpm HDD.

Use 'Ccleaner' and a decent defragmenter such as 'Auslogics' (both free) and uninstall any progams you don't need. Also check the startup utilities and again delete or freeze those not needed. You will surprised at the difference this makes.

Finally, get a decent modem/router - I've recently upgraded to the Billion 7800N - expensive at £115 but it has made a massive difference to everything.

 

[Vimeous]

Canada am I right in saying this is now your setup?:

PC with gigabit LAN card > 8-port Gigabit switch > AC Ryan kit (10/100 only)

There's little wrong with this in principle. The extra bandwidth the gigabit (1000) gives you between the the PC and switch means someone can be happily surfing while your PC streams to the AC Ryan. Yes the AC Ryan is 'only' 10/100 but even so it should only really struggle if you're sending it huge HD files that it can't cache fast enough for playback. That isn't necessaily a function of the PC or network but the AC Ryan itself. Has your change to gigabit helped the stuttering at all?

Regardless there are things you can do to help. Your suggestion of a new hard drive is great and the F3 probably the best choice for its value/speed/noise compromise. An SSD would be faster but even your old drive may not be the bottleneck.
The best thing to do is store your media data on a separate drive to the one your Operating System and page-file is kept. Hard drives still operate in a linear fashion (despite clever NCQ caching) so you don't want the act of just running the PC interrupting the retrieval of your media files.
This is where a NAS really scores because the OS is loaded separately and the drives are free to get on with your latest demands.

Using registry cleaners, switching off startup apps and the like will help but if your data is on a separate drive from your OS and Programs only an occasional defrag should be needed - and only then if you're forever deleting and re-adding data. The Windows one is more than adequate for this.
However playing with registry cleaners and tinkering with the startup apps can be a dangerous sport for the stability of your PC. Frankly I don't trust the cleaners to stay away from crucial system settings - even though I know how much rubbish hangs around in the registry - and startup apps you don't recognise may be important such as bonjour that's needed for iTunes.

Modern multi-core CPUs help here alot because they can run the rubbish you don't know you need and still run the things you've asked for!