I have a few questions re: HD performance
I currently have a 1.25 MHz G4 iMac (running 10.3) with the stock 80GB HD (I think a 5600 RPM 2 MB cache model). This is (I am pretty certain) an IDE drive on a 100MB/sec bus.
I also have an Acomdata external HD (250GB, 8 MB cache) hooked up via FW 400.
Which drive will likely offer better data throughput?
I think it's the internal drive -- my confusion came from a bits/bytes disconnect. If I am now correct, FW 400 is 400 megabits per second or ~50 megabytes/sec... or roughly half as fast as EIDE bus speed at 100 megabytes per second.... is that the case?
Are the other characteristics of the drives (rpm, cache, density) likely the bottleneck, or is it the bus speed, or does it depend on the applciation?
Follow-up questions:
I am replacing the stock drive with a 7200rpm WD HD with 8 MB cache...
How is this likely to compare to the FW drive?
How is this likely to affect overall system performance for standard iLife tasks (web, iPhoto (w/ a large library), iDVD, a little iMovie work)?
(I know the HD isn't likely the biggest performance problem on this machine. There's not much to be done with the G4 chip, but I am also dropping in a 1 GB stick while I'm replacing the HD, so that'll bring me from 768MB of memory to 1.5 GB - I know that'll spice things up.)
Top
