I have a 400Gb Seagate 7200.10 as my OS drive...it took about 30 seconds to get the properties screen of a 623mb exe file. Usually it's not so bad, but a short response delay when clicking the start button is not unusual.

I'd love an SSD, but I really don't want to spend $170 for 60Gb. I'm looking at the Western Digital Caviar Black 640Gb, which I've heard is a pretty snappy drive. Am I going to see enough of a difference to warrant a new drive, or will a format/reinstall (coming with the Windows 7 release) be just about as good?

My brother needs a bigger HD anyway, so my old one won't go to waste.

Edit:
Well, we have this:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/storage/11694-640gb-western-digital-caviar-black-wd6401aals-hd-tune-result.html

And mine.

I think I am going to upgrade. Torn between the WD Caviar Black and the Samsung Spinpoint F3. HRM.

Well damn, maybe I should just use my huge storage drive...

And just for kicks, my USB external drive. Bottlenecked much?

I guess this is now a HD benchmark thread.

I have the WD Black 640 you cited and it is awesome

Would you mind running a benchmark real quick? If it's a good bit quicker than mine, I may pick one up. I don't really want to run OS & programs/storage on the same drive, or I'd just use the one I have..

Fast access time...huge CPU usage, though.

I'm running the WD one. Had it for about a month and I've loved it so far. But then again I upgraded from an old 80 gig ATA 100 drive so of course I'd be impressed going to SATA. Here's a benchmark for you.

Wow, I want a drive that increases your CPU power when you use it.

No kidding!

Yeah, I was wondering about that one too. I ran it multiple times and got the same outcome.

I dunno where the random massive negative spikes came from but it seems on par with Rogue Leader's results

Including the negative CPU usage XD

This is on W7 Pro RTM with an i7 920 @ 3.3

Wow, my storage drive is faster than I thought! Maybe I will give it a shot...

my computer is veerrry gooood

I've been wondering about how fast my drives are. This should be useful.

[Edit: hmm it seems the tool can't read some data about external drives (such as SMART data).]





Probably the low spikes are 'cause I keep my page file on this drive.

Check out those temperatures, I think it's time to clean out the dust bunnies from the case.



I keep Steam on this one. Loading times.



And maybe this is why I can't play HDTV. I keep all my videos on this one.