Seagate barracuda 2mb buffer or Western Digital "special edition" 8mb buffer?

[Achilles97]

I don't know much about harddrives. Which is better:

Seagate Barracuda 40gig, 7200rpm, 2mb buffer, 8.5ms seek time

Or

Western Digital "Special Edition" 40gig, 7200rpm, 8mb buffer, 8.9ms seek time + a little more expensive.

Thanks!

 

[MangoTBG]

A brief answer -

WD

 

[suklee]

Another vote for the WD and its 8mb cache.

 

[modedepe]

Well the wd should be faster..But I've always had a soft spot for seagates

 

[EXman]

I had 2 WD JB's and both went BAD lil over a year I'm not buying WD anymore. there support was good but that was about it

 

[Achilles97]

How much of a difference does the buffer make?

 

[txxxx]

Originally posted by: Achilles97
How much of a difference does the buffer make?

Desktop use = a lot,
Server use = nothing much

 

[Matthias99]

Depends what your server is doing -- for a web server (constantly pulling up the same small files over and over) it would probably help a good deal. For an FTP or file server (where it's simply streaming potentially very large files, and probably not the same ones very often) it wouldn't do much. A database server of any reasonable size probably wouldn't see a whole lot of benefit, but it couldn't hurt.

An 8MB cache drive is also more likely to have a 3-year warranty, which *is* important even if the performance difference isn't that big.

 

[zodder]

Originally posted by: modedepe
Well the wd should be faster..But I've always had a soft spot for seagates

My sentiments exactly.

 

[MDE]

WD for speed, Seagate for silence.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

Originally posted by: Kai920
Another vote for the WD and its 8mb cache.

 

[dnuggett]

The Seagate will be the faster drive. There is a lower latency and a faster avg seek time with this drive versus the WD. They are however so close that it really doesn't matter a whole lot.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: dnuggett
The Seagate will be the faster drive. There is a lower latency and a faster avg seek time with this drive versus the WD. They are however so close that it really doesn't matter a whole lot.

I kindly disagree. For general desktop use, the WD will be noticeably faster than the Seagate, especially considering it has an 8MB cache vs 2MB. Then again, the Seagate will be noticeably quieter, so pick your poison (noise vs less speed).

 

[dnuggett]

Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress

Originally posted by: dnuggett
The Seagate will be the faster drive. There is a lower latency and a faster avg seek time with this drive versus the WD. They are however so close that it really doesn't matter a whole lot.

I kindly disagree. For general desktop use, the WD will be noticeably faster than the Seagate, especially considering it has an 8MB cache vs 2MB. Then again, the Seagate will be noticeably quieter, so pick your poison (noise vs less speed).

Very well. But then this begs a question... if the seek times and latency are better with the Seagate even given the 2 vs. 8 scenario how do we surmise that the WD is faster?

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy

Originally posted by: Kai920
Another vote for the WD and its 8mb cache.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: dnuggett

Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress

Originally posted by: dnuggett
The Seagate will be the faster drive. There is a lower latency and a faster avg seek time with this drive versus the WD. They are however so close that it really doesn't matter a whole lot.

I kindly disagree. For general desktop use, the WD will be noticeably faster than the Seagate, especially considering it has an 8MB cache vs 2MB. Then again, the Seagate will be noticeably quieter, so pick your poison (noise vs less speed).

Very well. But then this begs a question... if the seek times and latency are better with the Seagate even given the 2 vs. 8 scenario how do we surmise that the WD is faster?

.4ms difference won't necessarily be a huge boost in performance compared to quadruple the cache.

 

[Bonesdad]

Compusa has an 80GB Seagate drive for $49.99 after rebate. It also has an 8mb cache. If you have a Compusa around, surf to their website, print the ad ("unadvertised specials") and take it into the store. Great buy.

 

[StraightPipe]

you hsould check out the hot deals forum, the best thread going now is here

80 gigs are about as cheap as 40 gigs

I personally buy nothing but WD drives, but seagate is also a great brand.

about the argument above, seek time and latency are important, but dont equal drive speed. sustained transfer rate is how i measure a drive (since i move large files, like movies quite often)

most all new drives are going to be similar, but i think that as mentioned above the WD's are faster and louder than the seagates. i have 6 WD's in my bedroom, and i dont really notice the noise very often. Also i'd like to note they are varing ages from 2 weeks to 6 years : )

hope this helps, and i hope you get a HOT DEAL : )

 

[Achilles97]

 

[Achilles97]

 

[ElFenix]

i've got 2 cuda iv's and JB and really there isn't much difference except the JB whines every once in a while.

 

[Achilles97]

Originally posted by: Bonesdad
Compusa has an 80GB Seagate drive for $49.99 after rebate. It also has an 8mb cache. If you have a Compusa around, surf to their website, print the ad ("unadvertised specials") and take it into the store. Great buy.

WOW! Thanks a lot. I'll be getting this one.

 

[dnuggett]

Thanks for the replies guys... have done some more reading on the topic and I have a better idea than I thought I had before. I should have been looking at sustained transfer rates. That seems to be the true approximation of the drives actual performance.

 

[Ionizer86]

Another vote for the Seagate 80GB. Just got one this week after my 40GB Maxtor almost trashed out. Virtually silent and really fast!

 

[wetcat007]

How bout a 8mb cache seagate?