Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (
More info?)
John Doe wrote:
> Does anyone know what might be the best trade-off between speed and
> size in a hard disk drive? I do not require very much disk space. The
> quieter the better.
What's your priority here? Disk performance is controlled by three major
factors, storage density, RPM, and seek time. Newer drives tend to have
higher capacity resulting from higher storage density, hence, for the same
seek time and RPM newer will in general be faster. With a given storage
density, a higher RPM drive will move more bits past the head in a given
time and will have lower latency, which is the time it takes for the bit
you want to rotate from wherever it was when the head got into position to
the location of the head. Faster seek time is always beneficial, but it
isn't really tied to RPM or storage density, although again in general
higher RPM drives will be designed for higher performance and will thus
have shorter seek times.
Now, for quiet, right now Samsung seems to be doing a pretty good job.
Hitachi ATA drives are in my experience quiet for the most part but
periodically do a recalibration that bears a remarkable resemblance to a
cat cry. If you can find one in good condition Seagate Barracuda ATA IV
drives 40 gig or smaller are exceptionally quiet--first time I powered one
up I thought it was dead. The later drives are not as quiet.
>
> Thank you.
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram