[NARMAK]

Hi ladies and gents

This thread I want to dedicate as the official place to find information on whether better performance HHDs actually make a tangible difference to load times etc.

As we all know by now, game installs onto the HDD are mandatory and as such, we'd all want the best price to performance ratio. I do believe SSDs are out of reach from a practical and price standpoint, but they will be included for those members that might use them.

So, the key factors we're looking for are as follow:

RPM: 5400 vs. 7200 - Does it make a tangible difference?
HDD cache size: 8mb (typical size) vs. 64mb - Does it make a tangible difference?
SATA: Does SATA I, II or III have best performance - NB. SATA II is supported, not SATA III but we want to establish if it will push past performance of SATA II for whatever reason
Noise: How high or low of a sound does the drive make?

Those I think will be the key criteria in evaluating the performances of a drive.

Now, if you come across any reviews done on HDDs, please post me the links and I will go through each and every one and try to make a ranking table for easy reference, and generally a key as to what people should look for when selecting a HDD to upgrade to that will make the biggest and best performance upgrade.