New Hard Drive

altin_2

Hi guys.
Looking around to buy a new Hard Drive for my PC.
A bit puzzled with Buffer Size.....
Some have as 8MB and others as 16MB(in my spending limit).
Not sure what this mean.
Anyone can help please....
Thank you.

lee5768

go for a samsung f3 drive or a western digital blue or black

the f3 is a very fast drive and it almost silent and the western digitals are good but speed wise the f3



the buffer stores most recent used data to save pulling it from the hard drive again
but I wouldn't really worry about it honestly the drives i have listed are the best you can get other then SSD drives that cost too much

JasX

+1 vote for the F3 1TB model -by some margin the fastest on the market unless you're spending £££££s on a tiny SSD drive.

Note its only the 1TB model that this applies to due to its 2x 500GB independant plate arrangement, the 500GB model is physically different inside.

3 things to look for on your HD -rotation speed in rpm, buffer size, total capacity/space. All are best to maximise but some more than others depending on what you want to do with the drive (rpm = better seek time and also better r/w rates unless bottlenecked elsewhere, buffer size = better burst data transfer rates for file sizes/chunks up to the buffer size, total space = how much you can fit on.)

NB its a SATA2/SATA300 drive not IDE

altin_2

I normally use my PC for Internet Browsing.
At the moment i only have a 80GB Dell Disc, and only half of it is used, so not a big deal for the disc size. I'm only worried of any bottlenecks caused from different settings eg:buffer size, etc

totalsolutions

In that case stay as you are and invest in a backup / storage device, better value in terms of data loss prevention.

altin_2

In that case stay as you are and invest in a backup / storage device, better value in terms of data loss prevention.

Practically you are right.
Some weeks ago my hard drive started having this tick-tick noise. I believe is disk "dying" sign. And 2 days ago couldn't start at all. Was some kind of no hard disk error etc.
Anyway for "some reasons" did start today, but still have the ticking noise.
Expect to "die" at any moment. Will need a new one.
Some other think...
How do I find out if my Drive is SATA or PATA(IDE)? Have a Dimension 3100c.(tried without success online)
When I check hardware manager will say ..............ATA.
Sorry not at home now to do a proper check.

busenbust

Western Digital Caviar Green (1TB) (WD10EADS) is a nice alternative:cool: Perhaps a little bit more expensive - I think

JasX

busenbust wrote: »

Western Digital Caviar Green (1TB) (WD10EADS) is a nice alternative:cool: Perhaps a little bit more expensive - I think

I thought the 'green' hard drives were designed to consume less power but in exchange for cr*p performance?

Googling benchmarks the R/W thruput of the 1TB 'Green Drive' is around 75 MB/s, a good 65% odd behind the F3

I guess comes down to how much those few extra watts of power saving are worth to you.....

JasX

altin wrote: »

How do I find out if my Drive is SATA or PATA(IDE)? Have a Dimension 3100c.(tried without success online)

easiest way is to open the case and have a look at the back of the drive, if it has a fat 1" plus wide 'ribbon' cable comming from it its IDE, if it has a flat, narrow 1cm odd wide cable comming from it its SATA

PPS According to the link below you should have one SATA port on your motherboard, probably SATA1 you might need to google for SATA2 compatibility

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/SYSTEMS/dim3100c/en/SM_en/techov0.htm#wp1052309

busenbust

busenbust wrote: »

Western Digital Caviar Green (1TB) (WD10EADS) is a nice alternative:cool: Perhaps a little bit more expensive - I think

JasX wrote: »

I thought the 'green' hard drives were designed to consume less power but in exchange for cr*p performance?

Googling benchmarks the R/W thruput of the 1TB 'Green Drive' is around 75 MB/s, a good 65% odd behind the F3

I guess comes down to how much those few extra watts of power saving are worth to you.....

Really? :shocked: They certainly do have green credentials :cool: but performance-wise I see no real hit - IMHO. Like everything else on this sub-forum, it's such a personal judgment .

busenbust

busenbust wrote: »

Really? :shocked: They certainly do have green credentials :cool: but performance-wise I see no real hit - IMHO. Like everything else on this sub-forum, it's such a personal judgment .

.....Plus, I'm not into fragging - far too disciplined me .