regular Maxtor 80G 7200RPM vs. WD 8MB cache 7200RPM

[Neo_peter]

Does anybody have both these hard drives and can relate to the speed differences?

[OC-Master]

Speed diference isnt noticable but the WD will bench a little bit better because of the 8MB Cache.

But, the Maxtor has much quicker seek times which make it ideal for DVD Burning and very high speed CD burners that needed highest rated dedication of the hard disk.


OC-Master

[Neo_peter]

Oh ic... Cause mine is ATA133 as well oppose to the WD ATA100, but then again I don't ahve the ATA133 and RAID controller, I didn't know the non-raid version of my mobo didn't come with it, so I didn't get it..

[Maxvla]

ata100 and ata133 are virtually the same speed with current hard drives.

the fastest burst speed is still about 80mb/s

ata100 = 100mb/s
ata133 = 133mb/s

so you can see... you can widen the highway but you are still going the same speed.

btw... i'm off to install winders on my new 80gb WD 8mb cache i bought today. :)

[Neo_peter]

maxvla tell me what the real performance difference is like with your maxtor and WD... cause i wonder if it's worth the money.

[Maxvla]

well i haven't significantly noticed it yet, but it certainly feels a bit quicker.

i haven't played any games yet. that could be a telling factor. i'll get back to ya :)

[RnPgrosz]

I have seen benchmarks at Storage Review and the WD 8 MB cache competes with SCSI drives. Although the Maxtor has better seek times the WD will definitely perform better because of the large cache compared to the normal 2 MB cache that other drives have. Whether you will notice a difference I'm not sure.

[Neo_peter]

benchies mean nothing ot me, if i can't notice the difference, it's just waste of money

[Maxvla]

Originally posted by Neo_peter
benchies mean nothing ot me, if i can't notice the difference, it's just waste of money
played some UT today... definately noticeably faster loading.

if you are doing any audio/video editing you will notice the difference even more.

[Neo_peter]

i just hope it's not faster because you formatted your harddrive... but good job on the new hdd.

[Maxvla]

Originally posted by Neo_peter
i just hope it's not faster because you formatted your harddrive... but good job on the new hdd.
my previous hard drive (still in the machine) was formatted and reinstalled approx 2 weeks ago.

so the performance difference is real.

[nil_esh]

Well, I've got an older Maxtor 30G 7200RPM and an Seagate Barracuda IV. The WD 8MB 80GB I own is very fast. Booting is quick, software installs are very quick. I notice the difference most when I'm editing large sound files, it is very fast. Worth the extra $$$ I payed, when I could've got a bigger drive for less.

Though I can't really speak for the newer Maxtor drives.

[TheFrag]

Originally posted by nil_esh
Well, I've got an older Maxtor 30G 7200RPM and an Seagate Barracuda IV. The WD 8MB 80GB I own is very fast. Booting is quick, software installs are very quick. I notice the difference most when I'm editing large sound files, it is very fast. Worth the extra $$$ I payed, when I could've got a bigger drive for less.

Though I can't really speak for the newer Maxtor drives.

How do you liek your Barracuda? Im in search of a quiter drive and was looking at those

[nil_esh]

No complaints about the Barracuda IV (80G). Its been my storage drive (never used it for a system partition or anything intensive) so I haven't really seen what it can do, though copying large files to and from it is plenty fast. Its definitely quiet, you can't even tell when its reading or writing.

[Neo_peter]

I can't really complain about any harddrive noise cause of the case fans... I'll take your word of it, I mean it only costs about $20 CAD more, so i guess it's all worth it.

[CPIETRAS]

I own both a seagate barr. IV & a wd 8mb.
The seagate is VERY quiet, but the WD is very fast at loading and general usage.