Hard drive speed at mostly a matter of pluging the specs into
some equations to find out how it should perform. A simple
example is a 4 platter 40gig drive run at X speed. All else
being equal (which is not *always* the case) a 4 platter 80gig
drive is twice as fast with the same RPM simply because the
data is packed on at 2x the density so for a single platter
rotation twice as much data is retrieved in the same amount.

Latency is a factor is RPM and a "full bore" head seek. The
*avg* seek latency (simplified) is 1/3 the full-bore seek time
plus 1/2 the rotational latency (time it takes for 1 rotation). The
valus is the average time it takes to get the data you want
positioned under the read head.

All these things have to be taken into account when comparing
drives. I'd also pick Maxtor because they are a hard drive
company and they are extrememly good at replacing any bad
drives for 3 years. I dont see IBM being as customer friendly
because their hard drive business is only a small part of what
they do.


At 09:17 AM 2/19/01 -0600, you wrote:
>I read a review a while back on Tom's Hardware comparing the Maxtor 80 to
a variety
>of other drives, and the Maxtor 80 frequently tied or beat drives with
faster rpm's.
>
>I seem to remember it had to do that the track density minimizing head
usage and
>head movement.
>
>I doubt this would apply when comparing a 75GB to an 80GB though...
>
>
>Jason DeStefano wrote:
>> 
>> I picked up a Maxtor 80gig at Best But a couple week ago cause
>> I need more space to store ripped DVD when I encode them. The
>> drive works great. If you dont need super fast disk access then
>> 5400 is a pretty cheap way to go. The higher data density offsets
>> the lower spindle speed so for sustained xfers it should compete
>> well with 40-60gb 7200 rpm drives. I buy cheap drives for extra
>> storage and a really fast one for my primary system drive.
>> 
>> At 12:03 AM 2/19/01 -0600, you wrote:
>> >  Hi,
>> >
>> >On Sun, 18 Feb 2001, Austad, Jay wrote:
>> >
>> >> at 21:00 vcr -p MTV -r 1860 jackass.avi
>> >
>> >You're actually admitting to that?
>> >
>> >> A 30 minute show ends up being about 175MB at 384x288.  So most
movies will
>> >> fit on a CDR.  Now if there was only a way to make it automatically stop
>> >> recording during commercials.  I wonder if Broadcast 2000 can edit DivX
>> >> files....
>> >
>> >No, it can't. Neither can Microsoft Movie Maker that comes with WinME.
>> >
>> >Plus, vcr's fast motion divx is giving me pretty horrible quality. I've
>> >been using MPEG4 which is just as bad ane takes up more space, but at
>> >least I can edit it on my wife's machine.
>> >
>> >Problem is I'm out of diskspace. So what do you guys say, IBM Deskstar
>> >7200RPM 75GB or Matrox 5400RPM 80GB?
>> >
>>
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