Speed up your PC and get a Windows Experience Index score of 5.9. Part Four

When it comes to hard drives, again the bar for a perfect 5.9 has been set quite high by Microsoft. Luckily, though, the march of technology is making it very affordable to perfect this component. The WEI rating is based on the throughput of the drive alone. This means there are three things that determine just how good a score your
drive will get: its interface, the rotational speed and its data density.

Easy interfacing

The least significant of these is the interface. Whilst we don’t have exact figures, we think that even the older parallel ATA (PATA) interface should be good enough to provide a 5.9 score. However, the latest SATA 3.0 drives do offer genuinely large increases in available throughput, along with technical improvements in data queuing. So these are the drives we’d recommend you opt for, as long as your PC supports them.

Rotational speed obviously helps as the faster a disc spins the faster those little bits of data can get around inside your PC. The vast majority of drives spin at 7,200RPM, but the Western Digital Raptor range spin at 10,000RPM. These faster drives do come at quite a price premium, though.

The final area – data density – is an interesting one. If the majority of drives spin at the same speed and have the same surface area, then the more data you can cram onto that surface area the greater the data throughput. It seems that the latest generation of drives that can store 320GB per drive platter – drives can have up to three or four internal platters – are making the 5.9 mark. One such drive is the Western Digital SE16 (WD3200AAKS), which retails for as little as £40 in its 320GB model or £60 for the 640GB model, and with a fresh install of Windows Vista gave us a 5.9!

Replace your hard drive

A new drive can transform Windows Vista load times

1 DRIVING MISS DRIVEY

The hard drive lives in your computer case’s 3.5-inch drive bay. This could be fixed with basic screws or come with its own specialist sound-damping caddies. It will depend on your case – you just need to be sure the cables can reach.

2 THE CABLE MAN

We’re installing a SATA drive, and these types of drives make use of far thinner cables than drives of old. Locate the thin SATA connectors on the motherboard; if they’re numbered try to choose either connector 1 or 2.

3 CAPTAIN CONNECTION

The SATA cable will need connecting to the hard drive, which also requires a power connector. If your power supply doesn’t have a native SATA-style connector you’ll need to use an adaptor that takes the old style white connectors and provides a shiny new SATA style one to attach your drive.