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#1
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Hard Drive Speed??
Right now I have a 5400 rpm 30 gig hard drive and I'm thinking of upgrading to
a 7200 rpm. I saw a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 with 8 mg cache and also one with a 2 mg cache. Western Digital also makes one with an 8 mg cache. So my question is will there be a noticeable difference between the 5400 rpm and a 7200 rmp? Is there a noticeable difference between the 8 mg cache buffer and the 2 mg cache buffer? Also, as far as performance, does it matter if the drive is 60 gb or 120 gb? Thanks for any input. |
#3
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PawsForThought wrote:
Right now I have a 5400 rpm 30 gig hard drive and I'm thinking of upgrading to a 7200 rpm. I saw a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 with 8 mg cache and also one with a 2 mg cache. Western Digital also makes one with an 8 mg cache. So my question is will there be a noticeable difference between the 5400 rpm and a 7200 rmp? Is there a noticeable difference between the 8 mg cache buffer and the 2 mg cache buffer? Also, as far as performance, does it matter if the drive is 60 gb or 120 gb? Thanks for any input. There will be a large difference in anything that needs to read from the drive. 7200/5400 = 33% faster. Most present drive speed is limited by how fast the heads can read the data on the platter(s). No present IDE drives can saturate the ATA66 interface, but it is an improvement over the now obsolete ATA33. ATA100 and ATA133 are mostly marketing hype. The speed of the drive is affected by the way the data is physically written on the platters. This varies between drive manufacturers, but is about the same for all. Check the specs for the 60GB and 120GB to see which has the faster specs. Generally larger drive = more heads = more mass= slower track-to-track seek time, but this is not always true. The advantage of the larger buffer depends greatly on how the drive access is used. I see an increase in defrag speeds on my 8MB buffer drive, but it is hard to know if this is due to the larger buffer. Some makers still give a 3 year warranty on certain drives, usually the 8MB buffered ones. Virg Wall -- A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,........ Ralph Waldo Emerson (Microsoft programmer's manual.) |
#4
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The 7200 rpm with 8 MB of cache will be Noticeably faster. Go for it.
-- DaveW "PawsForThought" wrote in message ... Right now I have a 5400 rpm 30 gig hard drive and I'm thinking of upgrading to a 7200 rpm. I saw a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 with 8 mg cache and also one with a 2 mg cache. Western Digital also makes one with an 8 mg cache. So my question is will there be a noticeable difference between the 5400 rpm and a 7200 rmp? Is there a noticeable difference between the 8 mg cache buffer and the 2 mg cache buffer? Also, as far as performance, does it matter if the drive is 60 gb or 120 gb? Thanks for any input. |
#5
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You'll pee in your pants once you see what a difference it makes.
"PawsForThought" wrote in message ... Right now I have a 5400 rpm 30 gig hard drive and I'm thinking of upgrading to a 7200 rpm. I saw a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 with 8 mg cache and also one with a 2 mg cache. Western Digital also makes one with an 8 mg cache. So my question is will there be a noticeable difference between the 5400 rpm and a 7200 rmp? Is there a noticeable difference between the 8 mg cache buffer and the 2 mg cache buffer? Also, as far as performance, does it matter if the drive is 60 gb or 120 gb? Thanks for any input. |
#6
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I think the single best improvement in speed I have experienced is when I
went from a 5400 rpm to a 7200 rpm hard drive. VERY noticeable. "PawsForThought" wrote in message ... Right now I have a 5400 rpm 30 gig hard drive and I'm thinking of upgrading to a 7200 rpm. I saw a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 with 8 mg cache and also one with a 2 mg cache. Western Digital also makes one with an 8 mg cache. So my question is will there be a noticeable difference between the 5400 rpm and a 7200 rmp? Is there a noticeable difference between the 8 mg cache buffer and the 2 mg cache buffer? Also, as far as performance, does it matter if the drive is 60 gb or 120 gb? Thanks for any input. |
#7
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A bigger e.g. 120 GB will have better performance than a smaller e.g. 60 GB drive if they have the same number of platters because of the higher data density on the bigger drive. If they each have the same density e.g. if the 60 GB drive has 2 platters and the 120 GB drive has 4 platters then you won't notice any difference in performance. PawsForThought wrote: Right now I have a 5400 rpm 30 gig hard drive and I'm thinking of upgrading to a 7200 rpm. I saw a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 with 8 mg cache and also one with a 2 mg cache. Western Digital also makes one with an 8 mg cache. So my question is will there be a noticeable difference between the 5400 rpm and a 7200 rmp? Is there a noticeable difference between the 8 mg cache buffer and the 2 mg cache buffer? Also, as far as performance, does it matter if the drive is 60 gb or 120 gb? Thanks for any input. -- Mike Walsh West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A. |
#8
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