Does a bigger HDD mean better performance?

[connor25]

If you have say 250GB of data in total and are using a 1TB Drive, would a 2TB Drive give better performance of the same make/model x 2 in XRaid setup?

I mean generally, for filesharing too?  I read someone on the net mentioned this, but am not sure if this is correct.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@connor25 wrote:

If you have say 250GB of data in total and are using a 1TB Drive, would a 2TB Drive give better performance of the same make/model x 2 in XRaid setup?

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Often larger capacity drives within a family are faster.  That's because the drives are the same physical size, and the bits therefore are often closer together on the larger drives.  For instance, WD specs for internal transfer speed on the WDC Red Pros:

WD2001FFSX: 164 MB/s (2 TB) 

WD3001FFSX: 168 MB/s (3 TB) 

WD4001FFSX: 171 MB/s (4 TB) 

WD5001FFWX: 194 MB/s (5 TB) 

WD6001FFWX: 214 MB/s (6 TB) 

However, this is not always true, and performance of different drive families also varies (e.g. the WDC Red 6 TB WD60EFRX has a transfer speed of 175 MB/s. That's about the same as the 4 TB WD4001FFSX).

Performance is also more complicated than just MB/s for large file transfers.  So its best to google for reviews on the models you are considering.  For instance, http://www.storagereview.com/wd_red_pro_review_4tb_nasware_30

Note that your gigabit ethernet is limited to 125 MB/s anyway, and your over-the-internet speed and wifi speeds will be usually much slower than your ethernet. So for copying large files like videos, it really doesn't matter much.  If you are talking about browsing/copying folders with lots and lots of photos, the faster drives can make a difference (and SSDs are better than spinning disks for those).

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@connor25 wrote:

If you have say 250GB of data in total and are using a 1TB Drive, would a 2TB Drive give better performance of the same make/model x 2 in XRaid setup?

---

Often larger capacity drives within a family are faster.  That's because the drives are the same physical size, and the bits therefore are often closer together on the larger drives.  For instance, WD specs for internal transfer speed on the WDC Red Pros:

WD2001FFSX: 164 MB/s (2 TB) 

WD3001FFSX: 168 MB/s (3 TB) 

WD4001FFSX: 171 MB/s (4 TB) 

WD5001FFWX: 194 MB/s (5 TB) 

WD6001FFWX: 214 MB/s (6 TB) 

However, this is not always true, and performance of different drive families also varies (e.g. the WDC Red 6 TB WD60EFRX has a transfer speed of 175 MB/s. That's about the same as the 4 TB WD4001FFSX).

Performance is also more complicated than just MB/s for large file transfers.  So its best to google for reviews on the models you are considering.  For instance, http://www.storagereview.com/wd_red_pro_review_4tb_nasware_30

Note that your gigabit ethernet is limited to 125 MB/s anyway, and your over-the-internet speed and wifi speeds will be usually much slower than your ethernet. So for copying large files like videos, it really doesn't matter much.  If you are talking about browsing/copying folders with lots and lots of photos, the faster drives can make a difference (and SSDs are better than spinning disks for those).