Seek Time vs. Data Transfer Rate

[Guest]

This may have been answered before, but I couldn't find it and everywhere I look on the web, I get conflicting opinions, so...

There are 2 major factors in HD speed, Seek Time and Data Transfer rate. Seek time seems to be somewhat controlled by the HD speed 5400 RPM vs. 7200 RPM etc. Data Transfer rate is controlled by the interface ATA 33/66/100. So here is my question.

Which is more important as far as the performance of my HD?

I am building a new computer that has an ATA 100 interface, and am looking for a hard drive for it. So as a side question, what are good "target" values for these two parameters?

 

[HonestJhon]

well, i think that seek time affects transfer rate, because the hd has to "seek" the data to be transfered...
the rpm's help with the seek time, and if you have a good seek time accompanied with a high dma bandwidth, then you should have a fast drive. i have the maxtor ata-133 40 gig, and it is fast.
i think the seek time is 8.5ms, and it spins at 7200 rpm, with 2 megs of cache.
all that together with the ata-133 interface (which is running at 100, since i dont have a 133 controller), this drive smokes.
it loads games faster than my friends wd 120 gig ata-100...
another thing that affects the speed of a hd is the level of fragmentation.
if the drive hasnt been defragmented, and a lot of files have been added, or removed, then it is a good idea to defragment the drive, just to make it all nice and compact again.


-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[Guest]

Thanks, now let me ask another quick question. A local retailer has a Maxtor 40GB ATA 100 5400 RPM HDD, for sale right now for basically $70. It's seek time was stated as < 12 ms, so I would guess it is not much less. Is it worth saving the time and money of looking for a faster RPM drive and just going with this drive, or am I really going to notice a difference in my new machine (Athlon XP 1600, 512M PC2100 RAM)...

Steve

 

[mbetea]

you'll see the biggest difference when you compare drives with different rpm's. (eg. 5400 vs. 7200) a ata66 hdd@ 7200rpm will perform better than an ata100 hdd@5400rpm. so for $20-25 more, you could get a 40gb ata100@7200rpm hdd. for storage/backup(mp3's, etc) it wouldn't matter and i would personally go with the cheapest. but for the OS, apps and the like i'd go with the faster.

 

[HonestJhon]

fastest rpms....ata-100 should be fine...
but i would stay away from 5400 rpm drives except for if you are using it for storage, and wont be runnin the os off it, like mbtea said.
it helps with the startup of the comptuer, and accessing programs and such.
but i think that the greatest leap in performance, that will be noticeable, will be the rpms...
thinking back on it, the difference between my 10gig maxtor ata-66 5400 rpm drive, and my little brothers 20 gig 4500rpm ata-66 drive was VAST.
then again, my drive did have 2 megs of buffer space, and his had 512k or whatever the lowest is....i am tired, and cant remember exact values.


-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-