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Thunderbird · Feb 18, 2002, 01:28 PM

I need to replace my 75GB IBM hard drive, which has now suffered it's second failure in 2 years. I am looking at a 7200 RPM, 100GB Western Digital hard drive ($179 from Outpost) and a Maxtor 5400 RPM, 120 GB hard drive ($208 from Macmall.) The less expensive drive is smaller but faster. The extra 20GB would be nice for DV work, but the higher speed of the 7200RPM drive would also make a difference.

So, what do you think? Faster or bigger? Anybody have experience with these drives? Seen them cheaper?

dav · Feb 18, 2002, 01:35 PM

i recently purchased a 7200RPM Western Digital 120Gb drive for $202 at Comp U Plus. http://www.compuplus.com/insidepage....pea&id=577

ChaChi Boy · Feb 18, 2002, 04:27 PM

I can see a very big speed difference between a 5400 and 7200 RPM drive in Photoshop.

Guess which one I would opt for.

Thunderbird · Feb 18, 2002, 05:50 PM

dav, That is a very good price for that WD drive. It's the cheapest I've seen by at least $20. How was the service from that retailer?

fulmer · Feb 18, 2002, 11:12 PM

when you've 100 Gigs versus 120, you're only talking a 5% difference but much faster performance out of the 7200 RPM drive. Go for faster.

Feb 19, 2002, 12:30 AM

when you've 100 Gigs versus 120, you're only talking a 5% difference but much faster performance out of the 7200 RPM drive.

120 gigs is 20% larger than 100 gigs.

And 20 gigs are nothing to sneeze at. That's 4000 MP3s at high compression.

jcadam · Feb 19, 2002, 12:31 AM

Considering the biggest speed bottleneck in your system is disk I/O, get the fastest disk you can.

Slow hard drives piss me off. When are we going to see 10,000RPM IDE drives. I'd go SCSI if I was rich.

If I was REALLY rich, I'd get some of these bad boys:
http://www.bitmicro.com/products_sw.html

yea, access times measured in MICRO seconds.

In the words of the ladies man: "Oh yea, that's nice"

Cipher13 · Feb 19, 2002, 01:42 AM

Faster, always; though get fast AND big if you can.

100 gigs, 7200 rpm's, awesome.

11011001 · Feb 19, 2002, 02:54 AM

And don't forget that OS X uses virtual memory all over the place. In dle programs, Maya, photoshop... everything. Way more than in 9.

And so if you are running OS X, a faster drive should make a pretty big difference.

dav · Feb 19, 2002, 06:39 AM

Originally posted by Thunderbird:
<STRONG>dav, That is a very good price for that WD drive. It's the cheapest I've seen by at least $20. How was the service from that retailer?</STRONG>

what i expected. no problems. the drive arrived on time. it is packaged individually, not in western digital packaging, but sealed and packaged well (a couple layers of bubble wrap, then foam peanuts in a small box). didn't come with instructions, but printed on the drive itself are jumper setting so if you've ever done this before you have everything you need. no frills, good price, prompt delivery. - was the first time i ordered from them.

dav · Feb 19, 2002, 06:47 AM

nevermind

[ 02-19-2002: Message edited by: dav ]

ChaChi Boy · Feb 19, 2002, 08:48 AM

Originally posted by dav:
<STRONG>

any math majors out there? i get 1.2% (i.e., 120Gb is 1.2% larger than the 100Gb)

</STRONG>

What? This is easy. 100 Gigs = 100%. What would anther 20 gigs be? Right 120%. So it is 20% bigger.

1.2% what the dilly yo?

Ken_F2 · Feb 20, 2002, 12:40 AM

And the best drive to get, according to Storagereview's real world benchmarks...

Ken_F2 · Feb 20, 2002, 12:41 AM

I upgraded from the Maxtor D740X to the WD1000BB-SE (same as WD1000JB) and saw a significant improvement in Photoshop..

[ 02-20-2002: Message edited by: Ken_F2 ]