SpinPoint T166 and SpinPoint F3 - Worth reformatting?

[Ultima2876]

So I've just purchased a SpinPoint F3 for some extra storage, but suddenly realised my system drive (and games drive, two partitions) is a SpinPoint T166... which is a fair amount slower according to benchmarks (SpinPoint F3 = HD103SJ = 876 points, SpinPoint T166 = HD501LJ = 476 points).

So this is the layout I would have if I just slap the drive in and use it for extra storage:

T166 - Partition 1: System (80 GB)
T166 - Partition 2: Games/Programs (385 GB)

F3 - Partition 1: Audio (400 GB)
F3 - Partition 2: Storage (535 GB)

Question is, do you guys think the performance advantage would be noticeable if I were to spend a day reformatting and setting everything up again as follows:

F3 - Partition 1: System (120 GB)
F3 - Partition 2: Games/Programs (385 GB)
F3 - Partition 3: Audio (430 GB)

T166 - Partition 1: Storage (465 GB)

What do you guys think? Reckon I'll get any noticeable performance improvement by shifting my System/Games onto the F3 rather than having them on the slower T166, or is it not worth the time?

Thanks

[Pob255]

Yes there will be some, however doing a full reinstall can be a heck of a lot of work and time.

You could look into ghosting the old drive onto the new one that's probably going to be the easiest way to move it over.

[ik9000]

Yes there will be some, however doing a full reinstall can be a heck of a lot of work and time.

You could look into ghosting the old drive onto the new one that's probably going to be the easiest way to move it over.

+1 to everything Pob just wrote.

If you own, or are willing to buy, a large enough external HDD you could use this opportunity to create a full back-up of the drive and use this to reinstall once the drives are reformatted and partitioned. Doesn't shorten the process, but you get two chores done in one! Given the performance of the F3 is amongst the highest out there for the current generation of 1TB drives, I'd definitely want my system drive on this disk.

[Ultima2876]

It's not too big of a deal, I already have a backup of all my data on a network drive. It's really just reinstalling windows + all my apps, which as I said is basically a day...

I have no experience of ghosting drives or anything. All I've ever done in the past is done a clean reinstall of windows and redone all my apps/games... it usually takes about 4-5 hours total.

Thinking about it it's probably worth it - for the sake of 4-5 hours I'll have a snappier system which I suppose is ultimately worth it.

[ik9000]

Got to admit, that despite making back-ups I usually do a clean install. Serves as a good chance to get rid of old clutter, make sure I'm running the latest drivers and versions of software/patches etc, and gives a bit more piece of mind that anything buggy doesn't get transferred onto the new drive. Like you say, it's just time.

Let me know how you find the F3 - thinking of getting a pair for RAID with my next machine.

[Ultima2876]

I'm tempted to do the same, heard they're little beasts once you slap them in a RAID0... hell, they're supposed to be little beasts even without

[Max Tractor]

I would definitely use the f3 in some form of boot/os type situation

[Ultima2876]

Well, I did it!

It's nice to be on a clean PC again, with the drive layout exactly how I want it. To be honest, I can't really notice any difference in performance - pretty sure it's exactly the same as it was before... but oh well! I have my peace of mind that I'm utilising my HDDs in the best way possible. Thanks all.

[ik9000]

Good work - glad it didn't take too long.

try giving it a list of files to copy, move, backup and etc. I think it's the cumulative effect where the difference really starts to become noticeable.

[Ultima2876]

I did some more comprehensive testing, here are the results:

F3 (System) Write: 100.9mb/s Read: 127.0mb/s [Partition 1]
F3 (Games/Programs) Write: 112.4mb/s Read: 107.6mb/s [Partition 3]
F3 (Audio) Write: 124.0mb/s Read: 126.3mb/s [Partition 2]

T166 (Storage) Write: 73.8mb/s Read: 73.1mb/s [Partition 1]

The T166 Read is 67% as fast as the slowest F3 read speed, and 57% as fast as the fastest F3 read speed. The T166 write is 73% as fast as the slowest F3 write speed, and 59% as fast as the fastest F3 write speed.

I'm satisfied