Hard drives are constantly changing. From sizes getting bigger to solid state drives becoming the new hot idea we can’t get away from them. The problem is that for the most part we don’t have the first clue about all those technical terms that sales people like to boggle us with.
After all do you know what the difference in RPMs (revolutions per minute) is or how about MTBF?
While the real technical details about hard drives may not seem to be all that important but knowing them will save you from either looking like a deer caught in the headlights or possibly getting ripped off.
The following information comes courtesy of Windows 7 Annoyances: Tips, Secrets, and Solutions
What to look for in a new hard disk (Page 326)
The speed of your hard disk is a major factor of your system’s overall performance, at least as much as its capacity. After all, the faster it’s able to find data and transfer it, the quicker Windows will load, the faster your virtual memory will be, and the less time it will take to start applications and copy files.
Money is usually the deciding factor when choosing a drive, but with more money, people usually just opt for more gigabytes. If you want the best performance, though, consider these factors to be at least as important:
RPM (revolutions per minute)
This is the speed at which the disk spins; higher numbers are faster. Cheap drives spin at 5,400 RPM, but you shouldn’t settle for anything less than 7,200 RPM. 10,000 RPM (10k) are faster, but more expensive and harder to find. It’s also worth noting that a larger-capacity drive can be faster then a smaller drive of the same RPM rating due to the higher data density.
Buffer (measured in megabytes)
The buffer is memory (RAM) installed in the drive’s circuity that allows it to accept data from your computer faster than it is able to physically write to the disk surface, and to read data from the disk surface faster when your PC isn’t necessarily ready for it. A larger buffer is better; don’t settle for less than 16-32 megabytes.
MTBF (measured in hours)
It doesn’t matter how fast a drive is if it dies on you. The higher the MTBF – Mean Time Between Failure – the more reliable the drive is suppose to be. Of course, this isn’t a guarantee, but rather merely an indicator of the market for which the drive was designed for servers tend to have a much higher MTBF ratings than the low-end disks available on most computer store shelves.
RAID-ready
If you want to set up RAID as explained in Chapter 6, you’ll need two or more identical drives. In theory, there are no special requirements, but in practice, it’s smart to stick with drives made for this purpose. For instance, Seagate makes two versions of most of their drives: the AS series (consumer grade) and the NS series (server grade). The latter of the two is more expensive, but is designed to cope better with the increased vibrations generated by a RAID array, and typically has a much higher MTBF than the lessor model. Plus, the firmware on these drives is more likely to play nicely with your RAID controller.
Interface
There’s rarely any reason to buy anything but a SATA drive these days; if you can, get a drive with SATA3 and NCQ (Native Command Queuing). PATA (a.k.a. ATA or IDE) is not totally obsolete. Even if your desktop PC has only IDE controllers, it’s best to get a SATA drive and a cheap SATA PCI-E/PCI controller to go with it. The only time when you should consider an IDE is if you have an older laptop and you can’t upgrade the interface
And thus ends your nickel explanation of hard drives. Hopefully at some point the information will come in handy for you.
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