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tried to update the firmware and it was up to date already,.I do not know too much about HDDs but I was going to ask about the benifits of partioning a drive, but looks like you beat me to it. I'll try and set up a 500GB partion for games and report back wiith the results.Originally Posted by Kramy 
That is the weirdest performance arc that I've seen in a while. It's supposed to continue going upward towards the left... reaching at least 200MB/sec.
Access times are totally horrible. 20ms.
The first 300GB is good and fast, so that's fine for OS/Apps/Games - but the rest is too high... way higher than most 5400RPM drives. Good for storage, but not so great for other stuff.
I'd try flashing the drive's firmware to see if that helps:
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/223651en
And if it doesn't, partition it in at least two. Make the first only as large as you need for games (or other active data on the drive), and then make the second for storage of anything that isn't accessed at the same time as your games. That should keep access times as low as possible when playing.
(I suggest this because if access times get too high, some games or engines will fail to load important models/textures/files before they are needed, which can cause stutters. Keeping all the data close together towards the edge should help prevent that.)
Some have burst speeds higher than that. If a drive were doing something highly sequential (video editing/encoding, benchmarking, etc.), then it might matter - but for Apps/Games and regular usage it does not.
Edit: Have you checked if you can adjust the AAM settings in HDTune? It looks like a pretty good drive for the price.
But if you can figure out how to drop those access times, it'll be way faster. That would take it from a good deal to a really great deal.
That is the weirdest performance arc that I've seen in a while. It's supposed to continue going upward towards the left... reaching at least 200MB/sec.
Access times are totally horrible. 20ms.
The first 300GB is good and fast, so that's fine for OS/Apps/Games - but the rest is too high... way higher than most 5400RPM drives. Good for storage, but not so great for other stuff.I'd try flashing the drive's firmware to see if that helps:
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/223651en
And if it doesn't, partition it in at least two. Make the first only as large as you need for games (or other active data on the drive), and then make the second for storage of anything that isn't accessed at the same time as your games. That should keep access times as low as possible when playing.
(I suggest this because if access times get too high, some games or engines will fail to load important models/textures/files before they are needed, which can cause stutters. Keeping all the data close together towards the edge should help prevent that.)Some have burst speeds higher than that. If a drive were doing something highly sequential (video editing/encoding, benchmarking, etc.), then it might matter - but for Apps/Games and regular usage it does not.
Edit: Have you checked if you can adjust the AAM settings in HDTune? It looks like a pretty good drive for the price.
But if you can figure out how to drop those access times, it'll be way faster. That would take it from a good deal to a really great deal. Not sure what AAM settings are but I'll have a look around and see what I can find in HDtune
edit- well my drive doesn't support AAM settings, or at least not how it is currently set up. Partitioned it into 3 new volumes to see if that helps my times at all. Will post back some new results when HDtune is done. Any advice on how you could think to make it faster wopuld be much appreciated!
new bench with 3 volumes, didn't help much
Edit 2 - just saw this deal on Amazon. $90 for this drive
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0056YNA1Q
Edited by xRehab - 7/7/12 at 12:58am
Underwater
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Underwater
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They'll be even more envious if a 500GB test shows good results.
