Better performance ATA 133 or 8 meg buffer?

[ponch007]

which has better performance as a main drive--

ATA 133 7200rpm 80 gig maxtor with 2 meg buffer (on a 133 card) or
ATA 100 7200rpm 120 gig WD with 8 meg buffer

 

[newbiepcuser]

According to reviews and benchmark tests, the 8mb WD wins. Not sure if you can really notice the speed differences. There are some great deals on WD 8m SE editions right now, you might want to search around. Also the WD 8m editions have full three year warranty unlike the Maxtors.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Yeah, everything I have read says the WD with the 8mb buffer rocks. In fact, the performance of the drive is approaching that of some SCSI drives. 🙂

Also, I don't see much performance increase going from ATA/100 to ATA/133. However, the difference in a 2mb and 8mb cache is HUGE.

 

[ponch007]

Let me clarify- I have the maxtor installed and just ordered the SE Western Digital -- just deciding what to do with it.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Dump that zero, and install your new hero! 🙂

 

[Bovinicus]

All ATA133 does is increase the theoretical maximum bandwidth that the drive can transfer at. Since no drive can even totally saturate the ATA100 standard, it makes ATA133 a marketing gimick and nothing else. In fact, the drives have to share the 133MB/s PCI bus with your other PCI devices anyway, so 133MB/s isn't entirely possible. The 8MB buffer makes a significant difference, especially when transfering large numbers of files.

 

[CrazySaint]

Originally posted by: ponch007
Let me clarify- I have the maxtor installed and just ordered the SE Western Digital -- just deciding what to do with it.

Setup the WD as your boot drive and use the Maxtor as a data drive.

 

[jrichrds]

If an 8MB buffer gives a nice performance boost over a 2MB buffer, I wonder what held manufacturers back from putting larger buffers in their hard drives until now. It can't be that much more expensive to put in 6MB more buffer. My friend's cheapo AOpen cd-rw has 8mb buffer, and with the buffer underrun protection, it's not even needed.

 

[FishTankX]

First of all, caching algorithms couldn't deal with 8 megs of cache properly a long time ago, it wouldn't have provided nearly as much performance boost as it has today.

Second of all, the gap between data medium/burst speed rates has been increasing.. thus, necescating more cache. Because as the speed gap increases, the gap between burst rates and internal medium-to-cache data rates increases, the benefit of more cache makes itself prevelent.

And third of all, it costs money. Harddrives, well, you don't make *THAT* much money offa 'em. $4 could make or break your budget