Question on hard drive performance

[SeVeRaNCE]

ok im in the process of ordering a hard drive. theres so many to choose from. I know maxtor,seagate,IBM,quantum.. so on each have their differences. I'm building my system for gaming and want a good HD so my questions are.. For Example say i have an IBM 75GXP 30 gig ata/100 7200rpm and a Quantum 30gig ata/100 7200rpm. the IBM is probably better but would i actually see a performance difference while im playing games. i dont care what some guy got on his benchmarks. Lastly is there a noticeable difference between ata 66 and 100..

 

[CAMS]

<<Example say i have an IBM 75GXP 30 gig ata/100 7200rpm and a Quantum 30gig ata/100 7200rpm. the IBM is probably better but would i actually see a performance difference while im playing games.>>

No

<<Lastly is there a noticeable difference between ata 66 and 100.>>

No

 

[SeVeRaNCE]

what is the difference then between 66 and 100 0_o

 

[Nemi]

what is the difference then between 66 and 100

The difference is that one can bursst up to 66mb a second and the other can burst at 100mb a second. No current HDD can sustain a read of more than about 40mb a second. And your burst is from the hard drive cache, which is about 2mb on most drives. After that is gone, you are back to your sustained read.

So the skinny of it is: All current drives will run at there virtual maximum on an ATA66 system. Some day down the road HDD's will be able to take advantage of the ATA100 spec, but not now. Don't worry too much about it. Just get a good 7200rpm drive and be happy.

 

[Soccerman]

actually, yes you WOULD see a difference, if your computer didn't have much RAM.

 

[balboa]

Not a good point soccerman, cuz who has a lack of RAM nowdays with these prices!