How to speed up your computer

[Scott]

Want to really speed up your computer? Actually notice that windows and games load faster? Big files transfer quicker?

Just buy one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...raptor&Ntk=all

All I can say is WOW... One of the first upgrades that I actually noticed windows and games load alot quicker.. A new CPU was nice, more ram is great, but thoes hard drives are amazing. My windows install and load times have been cut in half.

[Steve]

you got the X version? :/

/edit - ah raptors in general?

[Scott]

I only got the 74Gb one for my OS.. I would like to get 2 more 150Gb ad put them in raid0 but funds don't allow it

[Steve]

yar been using a 74Gb one for a while now, great drives. i just cannot afford the 150 either :/

one thing that i failed to spot for a while was that windows was using the wrong driver for it, even though i had the WD drivers off their site, i always have problems with the F6 option when installing windows.

1/2 the time it just doesn't recognise the drive (like if you just skip the sata drivers full stop). or if it does pick up the sata drivers, it adds some really weird driver that drives the HDD at about 15MB/s



infact, IIRC there was no SCSI / RAID controller installed at all!

after telling windows to install some updated mass controller drivers the speed went to over 100MB/s. not sure what it should be exactly.

the weirdest thing it that i really didn't notice the slow speed, so i'm not sure if that was just a false reading because there was no driver. i'm pretty sure it would be noticeable if something is 10x slower.





/Off topic: 1900xt and some DDR2 arrived this morning. rest of my build should arrive on saturday

[Scattergun]

LoL I still dont think i need to upgrade my H-drive since it is only 4 months old and it si 7200Rpm and 16mb cache.

But i willl probably next time i upgrade just because everyone else i know has one and i just want to see how it would effect my comp.

[Scott]

Here are my results.. almost twice as fast as my WD 250GB SATAII

138.8.. I don't have any special drivers installed

Originally posted by Steve
/Off topic: 1900xt and some DDR2 arrived this morning. rest of my build should arrive on saturday

I'm jealous

[Hellfighter]

Originally posted by Steve
yar been using a 74Gb one for a while now, great drives. i just cannot afford the 150 either :/

never use this before will this work on all HD?

my is IDE type 300GB Maxtor 6L300RO




man the red line my is jumpy lol....don't know thats a good thing or not

will i use Fix-it 5 speed up everything


then i defrag the registry


can it be any better?

i don't have any raid scan going on with it, really don't know how to enable it anyways.

any tips be good Scott and others who may know how to make it run better.

[Scott]

The only way to really increase the hard drive speed is to either get 2 identical ones and put them in a RAID 0 configuration, buy a WD Raptor, or get a SCSI drive. I think the Raptor is the best way to go.. they even outperform some 15,000RPM SCSI drives..

Steve, do you have any noise problems with yours? Cause I can't hear mine at all. Although I do have thoes hard drive cushins... Almost every review says they are loud as hell, but mines dead silent.. Do they get louder over time or something?

[Steve]

i put mine in a 2 x 5 1/2" --> 3 x 3 1/2" bay converter. it has rubber gromits and special screws.

before it was noisy, i coult hear it accessing, and when it was in full use you could definately hear it. infact in its original location, when the MS antispyware scan kicked in at 2am, it sometimes used to wake me up.

it might be suprising but it depends on the case a lot aswell. i have an aluminium case, when the raptor span it it got the whole thing resonating. after moving the raptor i cant hear a thing

[DevilDog#1]

So WD Raptor X is better than the plain Raptor?

Looking for HDD for my old machine for dual boot of ME and XP. Latter for me. I'm thinking of making Raptor (X) slave and do an NTFS on it while other drive will remain FAT. Doable?

Edit: How can I tell from ATA from SATA. Im hardware challenged

[Scott]

Don't think the raptor x is faster, I think they just made it look cooler. Could be wrong tho, check the specs

I'd user the raptor for the primary drive and a slower one as slave..

First one is ide, second is sata:

[DevilDog#1]

I've IDE!

See my problem is that my Compaq desktop came with preload and partitioned. I do not want to disturb that configuration. Hence my reason of getting Raptop.

[DevilDog#1]

Another HDD question.

I see those $130 external HDD can they work as Master? (Can you tell I don't know much about HW)

[Scott]

if your computer can boot off a usb device then most likely. Check in the bios.. try it with a flash drive if you have one before you spend the money.