I don't pay too much attention to synthetic benchmarks, as they can be fudged by tests that are biased to one variable or another or optimized for a particular brand. I much prefer to see real world testing at hardware sites, but most any modern hard drive will give you decent performance. What I want is a quiet drive.
I recently replaced my WD Raptor HD, a 10K RPM drive, with a Maxtor 7200 RPM drive with a 16 MB cache because I couldn't stand the noise any longer (Raptors are VERY LOUD). I'm actually noticing better performance with the slower drive and my Vista hardware scores back that impression up. And, as a bonus, I can hear myself think. I recall reading when the Raptors came out of how the native queuing of the drive was made for a server application and not for the desktop, but I thought the drive platter velocity would make up for that. Nope. > -----Original Message----- > I upgraded recently to a Maxtor DiamondMax20 which should perform > better than the prior seagateST3120026A 7200 8mbCache but rated slower (95)... ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
