what is next increase after 500gb/platter & 4200rpm?

[dan]

Hi,

I know current 3.5 drives max out at 500gb/platter.

What is the next increase in size, 640gb or 750gb platter? Even 1Tb platter.

I know many of the 2tb drives are at 5400rpm, but since the aureal density is increased, and it is being used as a storage drive, this seems fine.

would an increase of aureal density so total capacity of platter is 640gb or 750 or 1tb be enough to lower spindle speed to 4200rpm with same performance as 500gb with 5400rpm speed?

If 5400 rpm is quiet isn't 4200rpm even more quiet?

I think I'd like to buy a 2-3 platter/1tb 2Tb HD at 4200rpm fluid bearing.

[andyb]

600GB or 666GB/platter is the next likely jump, my money would be on 666, as it would mean a 3-platter 2TB drive.

The performance difference between 666GB platters @ 4200rpm and 500GB platters @ 5400rpm would be near identical if the platters had the same amount of tracks, but they wont, so the performance will be lower.

There is a smaller advantage going from 5400rpm down to 4200rpm than there was dripping down from 7200rpm to 5400rpm, and as it took many years for that spindle speed drop to take place it wont likely happen soon, unless a manufacturer does a special spindle speed drive for online data centers and data archives who would be the only ones to have any reasonable gain.

5400rpm drives inside a case that are soft mounted are almost inaudable now, yes 4200rpm drive will be quieter, but would you really notice. Also the head movement noise would then be more noticable unless that was also made quieter (little to do with spindle speed).


Andy

[dan]

600GB or 666GB/platter is the next likely jump, my money would be on 666, as it would mean a 3-platter 2TB drive.

The performance difference between 666GB platters @ 4200rpm and 500GB platters @ 5400rpm would be near identical if the platters had the same amount of tracks, but they wont, so the performance will be lower.

There is a smaller advantage going from 5400rpm down to 4200rpm than there was dripping down from 7200rpm to 5400rpm, and as it took many years for that spindle speed drop to take place it wont likely happen soon, unless a manufacturer does a special spindle speed drive for online data centers and data archives who would be the only ones to have any reasonable gain.

5400rpm drives inside a case that are soft mounted are almost inaudable now, yes 4200rpm drive will be quieter, but would you really notice. Also the head movement noise would then be more noticable unless that was also made quieter (little to do with spindle speed).


Andy

I know that Western Digital is moving to 4096 byte, will all 600+ platters need to move to the new form that is xp incompatible? I luv my xp

4200rpm should also lower power consumption

[whiic]

I know that Western Digital is moving to 4096 byte, will all 600+ platters need to move to the new form that is xp incompatible?

You're obviously meaning 4096 byte sectors (instead of de-facto standard of 512 bytes used for the last few decades). 4096 byte sectors isn't required for higher areal densities. It will only make error correction code more effective and prevent lost space. Also, as they switch to 4096 byte sectors they effectively make 500GB platters 600+ GB platters without increasing number of tracks => more speed (and more capacity).

I luv my xp

Indeed. XP is a good OS. It took numerous service packs to bring Vista even close to XP. Even in the very end of Vista, it didn't clearly beat XP overall - only in certain specific tasks (while losing on some others).

Windows 7 will however beat XP after the worst birth defects have been fixed. Which have probably already been done.

4200rpm should also lower power consumption

Of course it would be, but like andyb said, the advantage from going from 5400rpm to 4200rpm is much smaller than it was from 7200rpm to 5400rpm.

With 5400rpm HDDs, the power consumption of the spindle is already close to being on par with SATA interface and logical electronics embedded to HDD. Even if you made the HDD slower, you cannot save electricity by downclocking the interface. Or actually you can, by throwing SATA/300 out of the window and "degrading" to SATA/150. I would actually call it a sensible thing to do... but no. Instead of ditching SATA/300 and reverting to SATA/150, they introduce SATA/600 with 6 Gbit/s interface speed when HDD internals cannot even saturate ancient SATA/150... that's a lot of wasted electricity for no mentionable performance gain. The wasted electricity of 6 Gbit/s SATA is more noticeable than what's between 5400rpm and 4200rpm...

WD's introduction of 4096 byte sectors is a lot more reasonable than Seagates 6 Gbits/s SATA. WD's decision makes bigger capacities and better performance with no added platter or rpm (no added noise), when Seagate wastes electricity for no added capacity and no added performance. And how many years until they want 12 Gbit/s interface for HDDs? It's just ridiculous...

[andymcca]

I luv my xp

Indeed. XP is a good OS. It took numerous service packs to bring Vista even close to XP. Even in the very end of Vista, it didn't clearly beat XP overall - only in certain specific tasks (while losing on some others).

Windows 7 will however beat XP after the worst birth defects have been fixed. Which have probably already been done.

Is it just me or does this represent a pattern in Windows branded products? If we ignore NT, CE, etc. releases:
3.1 :)
95 :(
98 :)
ME :(
(2000 was NT based, skipping, but :S )
XP :)
Vista :(
7 :)
...
Ubuntu! :D

[dan]

I know that Western Digital is moving to 4096 byte, will all 600+ platters need to move to the new form that is xp incompatible?

You're obviously meaning 4096 byte sectors (instead of de-facto standard of 512 bytes used for the last few decades). 4096 byte sectors isn't required for higher areal densities. It will only make error correction code more effective and prevent lost space. Also, as they switch to 4096 byte sectors they effectively make 500GB platters 600+ GB platters without increasing number of tracks => more speed (and more capacity).

I luv my xp

Indeed. XP is a good OS. It took numerous service packs to bring Vista even close to XP. Even in the very end of Vista, it didn't clearly beat XP overall - only in certain specific tasks (while losing on some others).

Windows 7 will however beat XP after the worst birth defects have been fixed. Which have probably already been done.

4200rpm should also lower power consumption

Of course it would be, but like andyb said, the advantage from going from 5400rpm to 4200rpm is much smaller than it was from 7200rpm to 5400rpm.

With 5400rpm HDDs, the power consumption of the spindle is already close to being on par with SATA interface and logical electronics embedded to HDD. Even if you made the HDD slower, you cannot save electricity by downclocking the interface. Or actually you can, by throwing SATA/300 out of the window and "degrading" to SATA/150. I would actually call it a sensible thing to do... but no. Instead of ditching SATA/300 and reverting to SATA/150, they introduce SATA/600 with 6 Gbit/s interface speed when HDD internals cannot even saturate ancient SATA/150... that's a lot of wasted electricity for no mentionable performance gain. The wasted electricity of 6 Gbit/s SATA is more noticeable than what's between 5400rpm and 4200rpm...

WD's introduction of 4096 byte sectors is a lot more reasonable than Seagates 6 Gbits/s SATA. WD's decision makes bigger capacities and better performance with no added platter or rpm (no added noise), when Seagate wastes electricity for no added capacity and no added performance. And how many years until they want 12 Gbit/s interface for HDDs? It's just ridiculous...

I know that XP does not support 4086 byte sectors, and that of course there will be returns based on xp incompatibility.

How come the transition above 500gb/platter seems so slow? I thought HD doubles every 12 months or so.

[Eunos]

I understood that the following download enabled the Advanced Format drives to operate with XP.

http://support.wdc.com/product/download ... 2%8C%A9=en

[dan]

I understood that the following download enabled the Advanced Format drives to operate with XP.

http://support.wdc.com/product/download ... 2%8C%A9=en

Is it possible to have more than 2tb with xp?

[Eunos]

An interesting question.

After a search, it looks like the original XP (prior to SP1) was limited to seeing 127GB. The later versions of XP in 32 bit form with 512 byte sectors appear to be limited to 2TB per partition, though this in theory may blow out to 16TB with Advanced Format. With the 64 bit edition of XP, the 2TB limit can also be exceeded.

Of course this currently is a moot point unless you are running multiple large drives in RAID.

I am sure whiic will be able to expand on this.

[whiic]

it looks like the original XP (prior to SP1) was limited to seeing 127GB. The later versions of XP in 32 bit form with 512 byte sectors appear to be limited to 2TB per partition, though this in theory may blow out to 16TB with Advanced Format.

Nope. The HDD has 4096 byte physical sectors but they are accessed through legacy 512 byte sector emulation. This means that OS sees each physical sector as 8 logical sectors. As it's accessed through logical sectors, you cannot bypass 2 TiB limit (2.2 TB) by use of 4096 sectors.

IF the HDDs were used without legacy emulation, 2 TiB could be broken... BUT non-512 byte sector size is probably unsupported in XP so it would render the HDD totally inaccessible by XP, regardless of the HDDs size (even under 2 TiB barrier).

With the 64 bit edition of XP, the 2TB limit can also be exceeded.

Windows XP 64-bit (= Windows Server 64-bit with minor alterations) is a bit bubblegum-patched so I'm not sure it's natively 64-bit in every aspect. Sure, more than 4 GiB of RAM but I wouldn't take other advantages of 64-bit for granted. AFAIK, there's problem with legacy partition table being designed for 32-bit systems. 64-bit XP doesn't support GPT (GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) Partition Table).

With partition table being the limiter (instead of partition's file system format), you cannot even create two 2TB partitions to a 4TB HDD (or an array having that much capacity) to get past this limitation. You need a GPT supporting OS (Vista or newer) and if you want to boot from it, you need EFI supporting BIOS firmware.

Previous related topic here:
viewtopic.php?t=56780

[dan]

it looks like the original XP (prior to SP1) was limited to seeing 127GB. The later versions of XP in 32 bit form with 512 byte sectors appear to be limited to 2TB per partition, though this in theory may blow out to 16TB with Advanced Format.

Nope. The HDD has 4096 byte physical sectors but they are accessed through legacy 512 byte sector emulation. This means that OS sees each physical sector as 8 logical sectors. As it's accessed through logical sectors, you cannot bypass 2 TiB limit (2.2 TB) by use of 4096 sectors.

IF the HDDs were used without legacy emulation, 2 TiB could be broken... BUT non-512 byte sector size is probably unsupported in XP so it would render the HDD totally inaccessible by XP, regardless of the HDDs size (even under 2 TiB barrier).

With the 64 bit edition of XP, the 2TB limit can also be exceeded.

Windows XP 64-bit (= Windows Server 64-bit with minor alterations) is a bit bubblegum-patched so I'm not sure it's natively 64-bit in every aspect. Sure, more than 4 GiB of RAM but I wouldn't take other advantages of 64-bit for granted. AFAIK, there's problem with legacy partition table being designed for 32-bit systems. 64-bit XP doesn't support GPT (GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) Partition Table).

With partition table being the limiter (instead of partition's file system format), you cannot even create two 2TB partitions to a 4TB HDD (or an array having that much capacity) to get past this limitation. You need a GPT supporting OS (Vista or newer) and if you want to boot from it, you need EFI supporting BIOS firmware.

Previous related topic here:
viewtopic.php?t=56780

What about windows 7 and does it matter if it is 64 or 32 bit?

[whiic]

What about windows 7 and does it matter if it is 64 or 32 bit?

Windows 7 64-bit supports GPT, thus bigger than 2.2 TB HDDs or RAID arrays. I don't know if it supports non-512 byte logical sectors, but it doesn't matter if it supports or not, since it can access beyond 2.2 TB anyway, and WD Advanced Format drives do have the legacy 512 byte emulation.

As for whether Windows 7 32-bit can in any way get beyond 2.2 TB (for example with bigger than 512 bytes logical sectors), is not something I'm interested in. In my opinion, anyone even considering Win 7 32-bit should be forcibly euthanized because they deserve to be removed from mankind's gene pool. Win 7 shouldn't be offered as 32-bit variant. Two OS generations is more than enough of a transitionary period to 64-bit.

[Eunos]

Just noticed this in Wikipedia:

In September 2009, Showa Denko announced capacity improvements in platters that they manufacture for HDD makers. A single 2.5" platter is able to hold 334 GB worth of data, and preliminary results for 3.5" indicate a 750 GB per platter capacity.

[andyb]

As for whether Windows 7 32-bit can in any way get beyond 2.2 TB (for example with bigger than 512 bytes logical sectors), is not something I'm interested in. In my opinion, anyone even considering Win 7 32-bit should be forcibly euthanized because they deserve to be removed from mankind's gene pool. Win 7 shouldn't be offered as 32-bit variant. Two OS generations is more than enough of a transitionary period to 64-bit

Well said.

FYI W2K3 server (32-bit) is perfectly happy with partitions over 2TB, so any newer OS should not pose a problem.

In September 2009, Showa Denko announced capacity improvements in platters that they manufacture for HDD makers. A single 2.5" platter is able to hold 334 GB worth of data, and preliminary results for 3.5" indicate a 750 GB per platter capacity.

Interesting.


Andy

[lobuni]

An article at Hexus hints at 640GB platters.

[Cryoburner]

Is it just me or does this represent a pattern in Windows branded products? If we ignore NT, CE, etc. releases:
3.1 :)
95 :(
98 :)
ME :(
(2000 was NT based, skipping, but :S )
XP :)
Vista :(
7 :)
...
Ubuntu! :D

Except Windows 95 was generally well received and quite popular, so your pattern doesn't really hold up. :P

Windows 95 offered a much improved interface over 3.1, and enabled support for 32 bit applications and many other useful features. While 3.1 was good enough for its time, 95 was a huge improvement over that. Windows became more of an operating system, and less of a GUI for DOS. Windows 98 was actually less impressive, since it didn't really add all that many significant features to what was already available. It was still a decent update though, offering some improvements without breaking too much in the process.

In my opinion, anyone even considering Win 7 32-bit should be forcibly euthanized because they deserve to be removed from mankind's gene pool. Win 7 shouldn't be offered as 32-bit variant. Two OS generations is more than enough of a transitionary period to 64-bit.

I agree that Microsoft could have probably skipped releasing a 32 bit version of Windows 7, but there are logical reasons for some people to choose it over the 64 bit version. Most important is probably hardware compatibility, as some older devices lack 64 bit drivers. There's also the lack of support for old 16 bit applications, though that's likely a less common problem, and one that can probably be solved through virtualization.

There's also the point that most people probably don't know or care whether their operating system is 64 bit or not. Really, nearly all applications currently available are 32 bit, and wouldn't significantly benefit from being rewritten exclusively for 64 bit mode. The majority of people currently don't need access to 4+ GB of RAM either, so the benefits of a 64 bit operating system to the common user are fairly minimal at this time.