Hard drive?

[Ruben Miranda]

Hello All
You Comp specialist
I am looking to upgrade my Hard drive.
My Primary drive is to small for Windows XP Since it needs 200 MB free at all times to run right

Any ways My Slave that I use for my Data storage is bigger and is enough to make my Primary to run Windows on.

So I need to get a 2nd HD to load and save all my other Crap.

I am looking at this one

Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L200R0 200GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA133 Hard Drive - OEM

Average Latency: 4.17ms
Average Seek Time: 9ms
Cache: 16MB
Features: Native command queuing for enhanced efficiency Quiet Drive Technology for acoustics-sensitive applications Whisper-quiet fluid dynamic bearing motors Maxtor Shock Protection and Data Protection Systems for greater reliability RoHS Comliant (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) Maxtor supports the Global Environment Reduce lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadmium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB), and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE)
Form Factor: 3.5"
Manufacturer Warranty: 3 Years

Model #: 6L200R0

I have always used Maxtor and have had good luck with them but I would be willing to check out something diffrent if it is better.

Thanks in advance
Hitman

[Bilbo]

You may want to have a look at the newer Hitachi drives (model Deskstar T7K250) they're getting pretty good reviews everywhere I looked. I'm very probably gonna use a pair of them in RAID0 for my next PC.

Edit: Added URL.

[Ruben Miranda]

Hi Bilbo
Thanks for the info That hard drive do's look good.

? Should I be thinking about the Cache size do's that make a diffrence in speed.

Hitman

[Bilbo]

I believe it depends on how you're gonna use the disk and the size of the files you're transferring to/from your disk. The main bottleneck is still the physical transfer from the disk platters themselves no matter what you do. I don't believe the difference between 8MB and 16MB would be very much perceptible, generally speaking.

In my case, I was looking for a SATA II/300 drive with NCQ and, as of a few weeks ago, there was not that big a choice available...

[Ruben Miranda]

Hello Bilbo
Thanks
Well this is going to be my 2nd drive (Slave) so what will be installed and ran off of it are my games and downloads everything except windows.

I have my comp setup with 2 HD one has Windows XP pro
(Windows works much better when it is installed by itsself).

The 2nd drive has everything else
Over the years this has worked very well for and have not loss any data do to Win Crash or a virus.

So as a 2nd drive do you still feel 8MB Cache will work well.

Hitman

[Bilbo]

I'm not a real hardware expert but, as I said, I don't believe the 16MB vs 8MB of cache would make a very big difference in the usage you will do of it. It would probably affect some particular benchmarks more than others, but in real life gaming, I doub it would make any significant difference, especially in racing games which almost always run straight from RAM anyways (not much disk accesses while racing except maybe to save telemetry info and/or replays and even then, I think the majority save these after the race/session).

The difference would probably be bigger if you wanted to use the disk in a multi-user server, where the extra memory would enable NCQ to do an even better job. In a single-user, relatively well defragmented, non-RAID setup, NCQ should not have that big an influence and extra cache memory either as most disk accesses should usually be sequential anyways and the limiting factor is always the transfer rate from/to the platters as soon as we're talking about files bigger than the cache (roughly).

In my opinion, the seek time (i.e. average time before you start receiving any data from the disk) and sustained transfer rate (how fast the drive can actually read a stream of data from the spinning platter) are the most important stats to look at (I know, I simplified these definitions). Of course, all other things being equal (performance, quality, features, cost), you can't go wrong by having extra cache memory but I wouldn't pay much extra to have it myself...

That's my take on it but as I said, I am no hardware expert my specialty is just building/debugging software...

[Ruben Miranda]

Hello
Well I ordered the Hitachi 160 GB

I almost went with the Maxtor
The diffrence's
Money the Maxtor was $9.50 more not a big deal
and it also had 40 GB more then the Hitachi
And more Cauche.
The Maxtor was a little slower.

So what sold me on the Hitachi speed No NO NO

I did some more research and I liked what they were saying about the Hitachi so that is what really sold me

Thanks Bilbo
When I get it and Iam done reinstalling everything I will let you know how it do's.

Hitman

[Bilbo]

Future will tell if you made the right decision (not sure it would have been really "wrong" if you had gone the other way either), but if the reviews/comments are to be trusted, you're (or rather, we're) gonna like your new drive!

I have also pretty much been convinced by the reviews/comments (which I don't normally trust very much) which were pretty much unanimous about the newer Hitachi drives. It is also the drive that best meets my criterias at the moment, so the decision was not that hard for me (not that many good drives in the SATA II/300 field).