Virtual Memory on Caviar green? (WD20EARS)

Internal Drives WD Green
1

Hi all,

I recently purchased a 2TB WD20EARS for backup purposes. I split the drive into 2 partitions, 1TB to backup all my other drives (took almost the entire 1TB to do so :slight_smile: ) and the rest (around 880GB left) for other things.

My setup isā€¦

SATA:

1TB WD1001FALS - Main drive - various partitions (100GB for main Win7 at beginning of drive). Rest = games, data.
2TB WD20EARS - backup drive and misc stuff (880GB free atm)
Seagate 320GB - Downloads, years of it :wink:

IDE:
MAXTOR 200 - backups of my fav DVDs so I can watch them from the HD instead of searching for the DVD
MAXTOR 120 - others, small backups

Now, I decided to benhcmark my HDs to see which one was the fastest, and lo and behold, the WD20EARS is actually faster than the WD1001FALS (110MB/s for the 2TB, 100MB/s for the 1TB).

Since I usually place my Virtual memory file (pagefile.sys) on a separate physical HD, I am tempted to place it on the WD20EARS but my worry is that since itā€™s a Green Caviar, Iā€™ve read that they tend to spin down to save energy when not used (regardless of the power management setup).

Questionsā€¦

  1. Is it true that the Green Caviar will spin down if not in use after a short while?
  2. Would there be any other reasons to NOT use the green caviar for virtual memory purposes?

I do know theyā€™re intended mostly for static storage purposes, but since itā€™s so fast (compared to my other ones), why not use it?

I really really appreciate any help on thisā€¦ Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

Regards,

_Rej_

2

Hi there, as far as I know:

1- Yes, it is actually an advertised feature of green drives.

2- A SSD would be better.

3

i would not change

may be faster but is only 5400 rpm

4

actually they work between 5400 and 7200 depending on the use at the moment

5

i dont know if this is true

because when im doing seek tests i get 20ms acess

if drive chenges is rpm like you say i should notice better seek times

i think its only maketing

6

Thx for the input all..

Ok, so they spin down after a while. Is this hard coded or is there a way to disable this ā€œfeatureā€ :wink:

yea, I agree, but until I upgrade my setup to i7 Sandbridge, Iā€™ll wait. 'till then Iā€™m sure the prices will still go down (still on a budget) ā€“ although I read that because of the block erase and page write of the SSDs, itā€™s actually better to *not* put the pagefile.sys on them (been a while thoughā€¦ things might have changed since then).

again, thx all for the input

Regards,

R

7

It is hard coded, theres no way of by-passing this,i have, a WD10EARS ,when im playing doom 3, Grid, or any other game that needs to read fast from the hdd it does beautifully.