Give me 10,000RPM Hard drives as standard in new Powermacs. Surely much more productive than minor processor speed bumps!!! <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
In the mean time, ATA RAID (especially Xserve style dual-channel RAID) is a perfectly good way to get high throughput right now with cheap, quiet 7200RPM drives.
-10,000 rpm Hd's are expensive and they die fast. I'll stick with my 7200. Don't be caught up in the "It's Bigger therefore I want it" craze.-
Do they really die fast?
I don't want bigger, I just want FASTER as standard. I used an old Beige G3 the other day with a 10,000 drive in it. It was SO FAST!!!! it made the G4's I use seem SLOW!
Incredible but true, I didn't realise what a huge speed gain it would be. CI can't believe people are overlooking this!!!
I thoroughly recommend a 10K hard drive when buying a powermac!!
<strong>-10,000 rpm Hd's are expensive and they die fast. I'll stick with my 7200. Don't be caught up in the "It's Bigger therefore I want it" craze.-
Do they really die fast?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes, but not as fast as the 15Ks do. They're also loud and hot, and until the drives hmurchison mentioned show up, they also require (expensive) SCSI. Try pricing a Seagate Cheetah sometime. We set up a SAN full of SCSI drives - mostly 7200RPM, but there are some 10Ks - and we've already had two fail after about a year.
[quote]<strong>I don't want bigger, I just want FASTER as standard.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Completely understandable. Hard drives are in general one of the biggest bottlenecks in a system - that's why having gobs of RAM really speeds things up. However, Apple has to also accomodate audio professionals and graphic designers who would not appreciate the steady whine of a 10K, and the bulk of customers who prefer the balance of performance, reliability and price that 7200RPM ATA drives achieve.
The real solution, as mentioned, is solid state. The bulk of HDD technology, much of which is truly amazing, consists of making incredibly fast turntables. The basic problem, though, is the turntable itself. A storage technology that didn't involve spinning glass platters at mind-bending speeds and poking them with a magnet attached to an arm in order to read and write data could be cheaper, faster and more reliable.
[quote]<strong>Incredible but true, I didn't realise what a huge speed gain it would be. CI can't believe people are overlooking this!!!</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's not so much that people overlook it, as the tradeoffs aren't worth it to a lot of people. Those who really need speed - and there are plenty - do a brisk business with SCSI cards, drives, and RAIDs, and they pay good money for incredibly high speed. I believe Apple even offered a dual SCSI RAID configuration as a BTO option for a while. I'm not sure if they still do.
I was thinking the same thing. What 7200RPM drive provides the best performance? I think the IBM is the fastest 2-1/2 inch laptop size. What about 3-1/2 inch? Is IBM also the best performer?
The real problem is that Mac OS X SCSI performance is really crappy. My 4.5 Gig IBM SCSI drive absolutely CRAWLS in OS X. When I boot into 9, it's noticeably faster than my ATA drive.
If I get really adventurous, and decide to boot into 9 with the SCSI drive as my startup disk, my humble G4-450 feels like greased lightnin'.
SCSI was not a big priority when they were making Mac OS X. Jobs said it was dead; SCSI is only an expensive BTO option.
But as Apple tries to move into the enterprise market with the Xserve, SCSI is becoming more important. Hopefully performance will improve (and hopefully SCSI drives will go down in price so I can afford one bigger than 4.5 GB!)
<strong>If you've got enough memory you don't need a fast hard drive.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Why not maximize both. OS' like OSX and XP are going to cache to the HD regardless on whether you have gobs of memory. The whole chain needs to be optimized for the best throughpout. That's what seperates a Sun/SGI workstation for the typical consumer PC crapolo mistakenly called "Pro" systems <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
I can't say I share other posters' experience with 'slow SCSI' under Mac OS X. OS X has always performed better on SCSI drives than ATA for me (I have both). My system drive is a 15K Cheetah and I have no complaints about the speed. As for heat and noise, it's not hot and not noisy IMO. Newer drives are significanty quieter than they used to be.
Mac OS 9 certainly feels faster OS X but on my machine (no Altivec, no Quartz Extreme) that's a function of the Finder, not the disks.
If you want to know more about drives (esp answering questions like 'what's fastest') check out <a href="http://www.storagereview.com/"; target="_blank">Storage Review</a>. The Leaderboard and Database are really useful.
I doubt most people would see a difference between the current 5400/7200 drives and 10k ones. Besides, 10k's are way too loud for most people's tastes. I had two running in an external case, and they were uncomfortably loud. It sounded like a jet engine turning on when I gave them power. Besides, in order to get all of the benefit of these drives, you'd need a full-blown SCSI setup. It isn't cheap.
In terms of performance, it was marginally better, getting roughly 40MB/s sustained transfers between the u160 10k drives, and 25-30MB/s sustained between the ATA drives.
Personally, I'd say that sticking with ATA drives is fine for now. I'm going for total storage space, not the best possible speed.
I believe that anything Apple would offer in that arena wouldn't be too popular with the majority of buyers and would be pricey.
PM 450 MHz with a 7200 RPM HD writes PostScript files almost twice as fast as PM 733 MHz with a 5400 RPM HD, at least on OS 9. It does make difference.
Though I can be pursuaded that iBook should carry a 5400 RPM HD for the sake of battery life and heat generation, Apple must use only 7200 or higher RPM HDs in PowerMacs. Regardless of how many gigs of RAM you want to install.
It really makes a difference, but not only the RPM.
I had a Quantum Fireball 7200 RPM AV model installed on my old B/W G3 and the computer felt 50% faster ! It was realy amazing. Why ? The old HD was 7200 RPM too, but no AV mod. An AV (audio/video) HD doesn't recalibrate it's head ('cause of the heat). That way they have a more constant troughput without stopping each time (all be it very brief) to recalibrate.
<strong>PM 450 MHz with a 7200 RPM HD writes PostScript files almost twice as fast as PM 733 MHz with a 5400 RPM HD, at least on OS 9. It does make difference.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
OMG! Who would have thought! Faster hard drives help when writing files to the drive!
That's a fairly limited example. Most Power Mac users don't need fast HDDs. Those that do can BTO SCSI. Jimmy crack corn and I won't care.
<strong>10,000 rpm Hd's are expensive and they die fast. I'll stick with my 7200. Don't be caught up in the "It's Bigger therefore I want it" craze.</strong><hr></blockquote>
<strong>All you really want is a EMC Symmetrix DMX system which should be fast enough with it's 64GByte/second bandwidth. Screw IDE.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Comments
In the mean time, ATA RAID (especially Xserve style dual-channel RAID) is a perfectly good way to get high throughput right now with cheap, quiet 7200RPM drives.
Do they really die fast?
I don't want bigger, I just want FASTER as standard. I used an old Beige G3 the other day with a 10,000 drive in it. It was SO FAST!!!! it made the G4's I use seem SLOW!
Incredible but true, I didn't realise what a huge speed gain it would be. CI can't believe people are overlooking this!!!
I thoroughly recommend a 10K hard drive when buying a powermac!!
Drives do make a large difference. Especially in systems with lower memory.
<strong>-10,000 rpm Hd's are expensive and they die fast. I'll stick with my 7200. Don't be caught up in the "It's Bigger therefore I want it" craze.-
Do they really die fast?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes, but not as fast as the 15Ks do.
[quote]<strong>I don't want bigger, I just want FASTER as standard.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Completely understandable. Hard drives are in general one of the biggest bottlenecks in a system - that's why having gobs of RAM really speeds things up. However, Apple has to also accomodate audio professionals and graphic designers who would not appreciate the steady whine of a 10K, and the bulk of customers who prefer the balance of performance, reliability and price that 7200RPM ATA drives achieve.
The real solution, as mentioned, is solid state. The bulk of HDD technology, much of which is truly amazing, consists of making incredibly fast turntables. The basic problem, though, is the turntable itself.
[quote]<strong>Incredible but true, I didn't realise what a huge speed gain it would be. CI can't believe people are overlooking this!!!</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's not so much that people overlook it, as the tradeoffs aren't worth it to a lot of people. Those who really need speed - and there are plenty - do a brisk business with SCSI cards, drives, and RAIDs, and they pay good money for incredibly high speed. I believe Apple even offered a dual SCSI RAID configuration as a BTO option for a while. I'm not sure if they still do.
If I get really adventurous, and decide to boot into 9 with the SCSI drive as my startup disk, my humble G4-450 feels like greased lightnin'.
SCSI was not a big priority when they were making Mac OS X. Jobs said it was dead; SCSI is only an expensive BTO option.
But as Apple tries to move into the enterprise market with the Xserve, SCSI is becoming more important. Hopefully performance will improve (and hopefully SCSI drives will go down in price so I can afford one bigger than 4.5 GB!)
<strong>If you've got enough memory you don't need a fast hard drive.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Why not maximize both. OS' like OSX and XP are going to cache to the HD regardless on whether you have gobs of memory. The whole chain needs to be optimized for the best throughpout. That's what seperates a Sun/SGI workstation for the typical consumer PC crapolo mistakenly called "Pro" systems <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
AIM already forgot the processor. he he
I can't say I share other posters' experience with 'slow SCSI' under Mac OS X. OS X has always performed better on SCSI drives than ATA for me (I have both). My system drive is a 15K Cheetah and I have no complaints about the speed. As for heat and noise, it's not hot and not noisy IMO. Newer drives are significanty quieter than they used to be.
Mac OS 9 certainly feels faster OS X but on my machine (no Altivec, no Quartz Extreme) that's a function of the Finder, not the disks.
If you want to know more about drives (esp answering questions like 'what's fastest') check out <a href="http://www.storagereview.com/"; target="_blank">Storage Review</a>. The Leaderboard and Database are really useful.
In terms of performance, it was marginally better, getting roughly 40MB/s sustained transfers between the u160 10k drives, and 25-30MB/s sustained between the ATA drives.
Personally, I'd say that sticking with ATA drives is fine for now. I'm going for total storage space, not the best possible speed.
I believe that anything Apple would offer in that arena wouldn't be too popular with the majority of buyers and would be pricey.
All three need to be fast. No use having super fast Memory and Storage if the Processor is crap.
The storage speed needed to make up for not much memory would cost more than simply having lots of memory.
Forget the processor? No thanks, I'd rather see Apple around in 5 years time.
Barto
PS I know the Storage <-> Processor <-> Memory is slightly outdated.
Though I can be pursuaded that iBook should carry a 5400 RPM HD for the sake of battery life and heat generation, Apple must use only 7200 or higher RPM HDs in PowerMacs. Regardless of how many gigs of RAM you want to install.
I had a Quantum Fireball 7200 RPM AV model installed on my old B/W G3 and the computer felt 50% faster ! It was realy amazing. Why ? The old HD was 7200 RPM too, but no AV mod. An AV (audio/video) HD doesn't recalibrate it's head ('cause of the heat). That way they have a more constant troughput without stopping each time (all be it very brief) to recalibrate.
<strong>PM 450 MHz with a 7200 RPM HD writes PostScript files almost twice as fast as PM 733 MHz with a 5400 RPM HD, at least on OS 9. It does make difference.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
OMG! Who would have thought! Faster hard drives help when writing files to the drive!
That's a fairly limited example. Most Power Mac users don't need fast HDDs. Those that do can BTO SCSI. Jimmy crack corn and I won't care.
Barto
<strong>10,000 rpm Hd's are expensive and they die fast. I'll stick with my 7200. Don't be caught up in the "It's Bigger therefore I want it" craze.</strong><hr></blockquote>
My 7200 rpm drives keep dying...
<strong>All you really want is a EMC Symmetrix DMX system which should be fast enough with it's 64GByte/second bandwidth. Screw IDE.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I want one (ok, two)