[LAU] Which SATA drive? Size? [Was: Re: partition table]

Joshua Boyd jdboyd at jdboyd.net
Thu Dec 23 15:19:24 UTC 2010


On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 08:42:57PM -1000, david wrote:

> I don't think drive size has any impact on speed. Newer drives tend to  
> be faster than the previous models, I think. Also, the larger drives may  
> come with larger on-board caches.

In a given drive family, I think most size options come with the same
cache sizes.  Meaning, you can get a 500gig drive with 32MB cache, or a
1TB drive with the same cache.

As to size effecting performance, don't some file systems get slower
when they are running low on space?  That could be an argument for a
larger drive.

Smaller can sometimes mean faster, for instance if choosing a Seagate
Momentus XT, which is 320 gigs, instead of a 1TB drive.  The Momentus XT
has a few gigs of flash cache onboard, and reviewers across all
operating systems seem to be pretty favorable.

> Brands? I like Hitachi and Western Digital. Toshiba for notebook drives.  
> I've also had good results from IBM and Seagate. I've only had 2 drives  
> fail on me. Both very old Seagates. The oldest failed after being used  
> for about 10 years. The newer one died during its first year, was  
> replaced under warranty, then died again about 18 months later.

I've had drives of many brands fail, but usually old ones long past
warranty. 

Currently, I favor Seagate and Western Digital.  I don't know that I
have a great reason for that.  I certainly have had good Hitachi and
Fujitsu drives.


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