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formatting

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 3:03 pm
by Gorilla
havent done it in a long ass while now..

last time i did it i think it took like 1-2 hours..is it strange that it might take 4-6 hours at the rate im going?

blame sectoid for fucking up my pc

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:19 pm
by Fardomar
Just to do the re-formatting? or to re-format AND make your PC workable again.

It takes me about 8 hours to totally redo mine.

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 5:26 pm
by Gorilla
well RE format the whole thing and then install whatever..its only 30% done and its been at it since 1230 and its now 430 so im guessing it takes quite a while of course i did have some HD issue im pretty sure since it didnt boot up

but if its 8 hours that makes me hopeful hopefully i can get a raid goign soon too

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 9:25 pm
by Tingtong
WTF u doin low level formating your drive?

Quick NTFS Format takes like 30seconds nubcakes.

Also, Norton Ghost Images will save you multiple headakes in the future... Install Windows, Updates, Games, Drivers then take a Norton Image Burn it on DvD. Then Bam every 3months start from there do any updates within the 3months and reimage from your previous Image. (to keep Current)

I sorta a fanatic about it, but I also Auto-download torrents off RSS feeds and manage a few trojans etc here or there.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 8:06 am
by Gorilla
i tried doing the quick nfts and i kept getting stuck at certain spots..i think its my HD its old like 2002 or something

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:01 am
by Abysmal
If you are having hiccups during the actuall formatting process, replace your HD asap.
Once it starts to go, its only a matter of time before it fully craps. You can get a good 500 gig hard drive for about 120$ these days, no excuse anymore to run junk :)

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 12:07 pm
by Abysmal

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 3:52 pm
by Gorilla
i was thinking of getting like 2 250gb hdd's but my buddy told me he read some article stating that the 500gig singles are faster..i have yet to read anything like taht yet but ive been out of the loop for awhile..can anyone confirm the rumor?

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:13 pm
by Abysmal
Generally speaking, two disks set up in a raid 0 config will more large amounts of a data faster, but the random seek times will increase. Ive ran raid a few times before, and have not been that impressed as it relates to gaming.

Im not sure how you would prefer doing it, but it I were to build a pc right now, I would find a very fast modest sized hard drive to house my OS/games and a large drive to house my data (music, pictures, etc).

I find that I have to reload my OS about once every 4-6 months to keep it from slowly becoming a dog. With the OS on a Seperate drive than my data, I can reload it at will w/o losing any information. I even have an old Rev drive to back up my data drive about once a week :)

If you are not feeling that geeky about the whole thing, that drive I linked will seem pretty crazy compared to anything that was made in 2002.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:25 pm
by Tingtong
First test your drive for bad sectors, if you have any then replace the drive.

Also, if your looking for a 500Gb drive Seagate's Perpendicular Recording technology blows other drives out of the water. Hitachi also has them in their 1Tb's. Some people say they are loud I have 4 of them any they are no louder then another other drive I've owned. If I put my ear up to it I hear it slightly over my 14db SilenX fan which is pretty much a mouse fart anyways.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6822148136

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:39 pm
by barbos
If you have the dough, this is one of the fastest drives (transfer-wise) you can get for sata consumer use:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... wd7500aaks

PMR has been out on the consumer market for about 2 years now. Most large capacity drives nowadays have it.

Although you may not have any harddrive issues at all. However, if you do then definately follow Ting's advice. If you ever have a bad sector, or weird clicking noise, always replace immediately, even if the diagnostic software says it's repaired... it will only get worse once it starts.

I have heard of people having issues with quickformatting a drive, and really, if you have the time, you should always do a full format.

If you haven't had any issues since the full format, you might run the drive manufacturer's diagnostic software just incase. If it doesn't find any errors, I wouldn't worry about replacing it. You will definately see a bit of a performance increase with the newer technology, but you also might experience some issues with the big drive sizes with an older machine (I assume it's ~2002 as well)...

It's also worth blurting that you have transfer rate speed (amount of data per sec), and access time speed (latency between requests). Depending on the game, depends on which you get the best performance. Some of the games have thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of tiny little files. These types of games would benefit best with lower access time between requests since it stacks up exponentially waiting for all the stupid little files to load up. However some of them also have fewer huge files (especially new ones with these immensely detailed textures), which would benefit from being able to transfer more data at the same time.


Anyways, that's my 2 pennies of technobabble (haven't done it in awhile). :biggrin:

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:30 pm
by Abysmal
Out of curiosity how many people here are in the IT industry? :grommit:

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:43 pm
by barbos
just about everyone that posts on the internet thinks they are... :huh:

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 9:54 pm
by Tingtong
The new Hybrid Flash Hard Drives Are gonna blow the socks off what we think are good for hard drives in a year :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_drive

They say the amount of power they can save in a data center; they can pay for themselfs in 24hrs operation time. Pretty sick shit.

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:00 pm
by barbos
So far the results are disappointing in performance and power saving for real world usage in notebooks. I don't see them saving power in data centers, as the push for performance won't allow for the spindle to stop spinning. Now you are using more power for the same harddrive plus memory. It has potential in some areas, but it's far from a "saviour"