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8MB vs. 16MB buffer a huge difference?

D

dbaldus

Gawd
Joined
Jul 12, 2005
Messages
563
I'm thinking about buying this drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148148
Yes, I know it is not much space and that I'm paying over 50 cents/gig, but I have heard that this is supposed to be one of the fastest boot drives and I really do not need a 250 or 320 gb drive.

My only gripe with it is that it only has an 8Mb buffer, whereas the $80 250gb 7200.10 has a 16mb buffer. How much of a performance difference am I going to see between the two drives? I'm mainly interested in loading times for games on the rig in my signature. Currently running a Sata I 7200.7 drive that takes FOREVER to load up the games.

So, should I bite on this zippy 80Gb or would a higher capacity drive actually be faster? If it will be faster, I am willing to spend the extra money, but I don't want to spend the extra $35-40 on space that I could definitely "avoid" using.

Have any links for great prices on fast drives, no matter what capacity?
 
You could basically double your price and get almost 4 times the space. But it seems you are on a budget, so scratch my idea.
 
protias said:
You could basically double your price and get almost 4 times the space. But it seems you are on a budget, so scratch my idea.
Click to expand...

Yes, I am indeed on a budget BUT want to know will the 250Gb (twice the price, 4 times the storage) 7200.10 be FASTER than the 7200.9 with the 8mb buffer?

That is all I'm concerned about. If it will be faster, and significantly faster, than I can warrant spending the extra money. But spending the extra money JUST FOR THE SPACE is unnecessary, in my eyes.
 
In general, higher capacity = higher density = less time the head spends looking for data. If you want fastest boot times and dont care about cost (within reason that is) look at the 150GB Raptor, although I personally think the negligable speed difference is not anywhere near the cost. Look at the Western Digital 16MB cache drives, they fly. Ive built a few systems with them, including my own and they are as fast, if not faster than the 36/74GB Raptors.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701 will be the fastest drive near the price range of what you posted. The WD SE16 series are amazing IMO.
 
dbaldus said:
Yes, I am indeed on a budget BUT want to know will the 250Gb (twice the price, 4 times the storage) 7200.10 be FASTER than the 7200.9 with the 8mb buffer?

That is all I'm concerned about. If it will be faster, and significantly faster, than I can warrant spending the extra money. But spending the extra money JUST FOR THE SPACE is unnecessary, in my eyes.
Click to expand...

(You made this post right before I made my previous one so I am just addressing this one specifically)

Larger WILL be faster due to higher density. Read previous post for more.
 
dbaldus said:
Yes, I am indeed on a budget BUT want to know will the 250Gb (twice the price, 4 times the storage) 7200.10 be FASTER than the 7200.9 with the 8mb buffer?

That is all I'm concerned about. If it will be faster, and significantly faster, than I can warrant spending the extra money. But spending the extra money JUST FOR THE SPACE is unnecessary, in my eyes.
Click to expand...

You may notice a slight improvement, but it is not like it will be night and day between the 2 drives. If you can justify spending a little bit more, I would go with the 250 or 320 GB models. Having extra space is not a bad thing.
 
While on paper, some look to be better than others, the difference between all the current 7200rpm drives available is going to fall under "negligable". You will not get some great speed advantage going from a .9 to .10 drive, so get what fits your size needs and budget. I would personally get the fastest on paper since you're dealing with the slowest part of you system and every bit helps.
 
Kido1986 said:
In general, higher capacity = higher density = less time the head spends looking for data. If you want fastest boot times and dont care about cost (within reason that is) look at the 150GB Raptor, although I personally think the negligable speed difference is not anywhere near the cost. Look at the Western Digital 16MB cache drives, they fly. Ive built a few systems with them, including my own and they are as fast, if not faster than the 36/74GB Raptors.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701 will be the fastest drive near the price range of what you posted. The WD SE16 series are amazing IMO.
Click to expand...

Is it even better than this deal, after using Google checkout ($70)?

http://www.buy.com/prod/Seagate_Bar...erial_ATA/q/loc/101/202699364.html?adid=17662

Or is the WD you mentioned better than this drive?

And there are 3 year warranties through the manufacturer on WD drives, correct?
 
3 year warranty on all WD drives, correct?

And which drives are typically more quiet - the Seagates or the WDs?

And is perpendicular recording good for load times or just for stability or something like that?
 
Seagate is fine. I just listed the WDs because I have a personal thing for them. I have had tons of WD drives, and only 1 has ever died prematurely (not bad considering how many I've bought). Seagate costs a hair more usually, not much, and is usually a quieter drive, with slightly slower (although nearly negligible) performance.
 
And is perpendicular recording good for load times or just for stability or something like that?
Click to expand...
It's nothing but packing more data in a tighter space to improve drive performance. There are non-perpindicular drives that perform just as well if not better.
 
tuskenraider said:
While on paper, some look to be better than others, the difference between all the current 7200rpm drives available is going to fall under "negligable". You will not get some great speed advantage going from a .9 to .10 drive, so get what fits your size needs and budget. I would personally get the fastest on paper since you're dealing with the slowest part of you system and every bit helps.
Click to expand...

Would you stand by this statement when comparing an 80Gb 7200.9 and a 250Gb 7200.10, or would the higher capacity of the 250Gb version make it faster, as someone mentioned before?

And how much impact does 16Mb versus 8Mb buffer even have?
 
Would you stand by this statement when comparing an 80Gb 7200.9 and a 250Gb 7200.10, or would the higher capacity of the 250Gb version make it faster, as someone mentioned before? And how much impact does 16Mb versus 8Mb buffer even have?
Click to expand...
Sure. If you were to have an OS on both drives and timed boot up and programs opening, etc. you're probably looking at a second or two differential. Would that make me buy the better drive? Yep, but those on a budget shouldn't feel like they are way behind in performance because the went with a cheaper drive. As far as the buffer increase goes, there hasn't been much documentation to quantify the benefit and I think it's a lot less substantial than going from 2 to 8MB. More doesn't hurt and usually only costs a few bucks extra on the same drive. Nothing wrong with asking questions and increasing your knowledge, but me thinks you're making this harder than it should be. Buy the largest drive you can afford to suit your needs.
 
tuskenraider said:
Sure. If you were to have an OS on both drives and timed boot up and programs opening, etc. you're probably looking at a second or two differential. Would that make me buy the better drive? Yep, but those on a budget shouldn't feel like they are way behind in performance because the went with a cheaper drive. As far as the buffer increase goes, there hasn't been much documentation to quantify the benefit and I think it's a lot less substantial than going from 2 to 8MB. More doesn't hurt and usually only costs a few bucks extra on the same drive. Nothing wrong with asking questions and increasing your knowledge, but me thinks you're making this harder than it should be. Buy the largest drive you can afford to suit your needs.
Click to expand...

One last comment - you said that all "current" drives should perform roughly the same. Since I have a Sata 150 7200.7, would that compare to a 7200.9 or 7200.10? I'm asking because if I spent the $ on a new drive and only got a second or two faster load times, I would definitely be pissed.

But I'm assuming that by current, you mean 7200.9 and 7200.10, correct? Just need to be sure... and I will take your advice on buying the largest to suit my needs, I just want to make a better informed decision. Thanks again
 
Since I have a Sata 150 7200.7, would that compare to a 7200.9 or 7200.10? I'm asking because if I spent the $ on a new drive and only got a second or two faster load times, I would definitely be pissed.
Click to expand...
In real world desktop usuage, certainly. And actually the 7200.8 drive proved to be "faster" than the 7200.9 after it came out, so not all drives improve as the versions change. Unless you were to go to a very large .10 drive with real dense platters and increased buffer size, moving to these small newer drives you're considering is not going to really be noticeable. Heck, I put an 80GB WD on my system a month ago just to compare "feel" against a new single 36GB Raptor and while the difference was felt, it wasn't earth shattering and those two drives are about opposite of the performance spectrum as you can get.
 
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