buying a new hard drive....need advise

magicfingersmagicfingers
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I am going to puchase a second hard drive for my QS 867. I have a 13GB 5400 HD as a second now, but would like a faster drive. So...there is an 80 gb drive @ Bestbuy with an 8mb buffer(much more money) than without this large buffer.

Would the buffer make a big difference or not?

Any advise would be appreciated.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    spotbugspotbug Posts: 361member
    More information about what you're looking for would be good. You didn't mention price or size (except to say you saw an 80GB).



    Do you have to buy your new drive from Best Buy? Are you comfortable with mail order? You're going to get your most choices buying your drive through mail order. Check dealmac.com for good deals on drives (in the "storage" section of the web site).



    I recently purchased an internal, 120GB, 7200RPM Western Digital Caviar drive for about $190. It works very well (fast) and is extremely quiet. Western Digital recently released a 200GB IDE drive.



    Assuming you're going for IDE, 7200 RPM is really the useful limit on drive speed. 10,000 RPM (or higher) is, I believe, wasted on an IDE bus.



    edit: Duh, I forgot to answer your question about the buffer. I think it does make a big difference. Does the cheaper drive have no buffer at all?



    [ 08-04-2002: Message edited by: spotbug ]</p>
  • Reply 2 of 5
    magicfingersmagicfingers Posts: 703member
    The cheaper drive has a 2mb buffer. They are both western digital. and I will be partitioning and using it for

    mp3 storage, them massive dvd files for iDVD, and for pro tools recording. as far as price, its no big deal.

    Im mostly cuious as to the big/small buffer.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    mcqmcq Posts: 1,543member
    Sounds like you're doing a bit of audio/video stuff... I think the 8MB buffer would help a bit with that type of work. If you don't mind buying stuff online, newegg.com has the 80GB WD with the 8MB buffer for $109 and free shipping. It's the OEM drive, so no fancy retail packaging.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    telomartelomar Posts: 1,804member
    The 8mb buffer can make a sizeable difference to performance and is well worth the extra cash in my opinion if you are after peak performance for an IDE drive.



    Frankly I'm really surprised more companies haven't followed suit. It isn't as easy as adding more RAM to a computer but the performance advantage of a larger buffer in a HD can be significant in certain areas.



    <a href="http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200205/20020529WD800JB_1.html"; target="_blank">Review of drive in question</a>



    [ 08-05-2002: Message edited by: Telomar ]</p>
  • Reply 5 of 5
    smithjoelsmithjoel Posts: 240member
    I have that drive (WD800JB) and it dose seem faster than the 40 GB Quatum FS AS40 below it and the 40 GB IBM 75GXP in the next room. I only wish I'd gotten the 120 GB model, but that's a lot of money. For the mp3 stuff it won't make any difference, but the iDVD would be another story.



    [ 08-05-2002: Message edited by: smithjoel ]</p>
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