I'm about ready to buy a HD and USB 2.0 enclosure to offload my flac files from my main PC. I was looking at some 120GB HDs. There are two drives from the same manufacturer. Both are 120GB. One has a 2MB buffer and the other has an 8MB buffer. The model with the larger buffer is $8.62 more (that's about $0.07 more per GB.) Is the extra buffer worth the extra money?

If it matters, I'll be ripping to and encoding from the main HD and then storing and possibly playing from the drive and enclosure in question.

If you're doubting between Maxtor 6Y120P0 and 6Y120L0, the answer is : neither.

I recently bought a Western Digital Caviar 120 GB with 8 MB cache. It's very silent, compared to my old (broken) IBM.

Don't know if it's worth the extra money though... but it seems that 8 MB is going to be standard on all new disks anyway, so I would recommend going for the larger cache.

Out of curiosity - why do you need the USB support if (as it sounds) you will be having that drive connected most of the time (to play songs)?
Just sounds like you might want to just add a second HD?

I usually don't look at Maxtor either but you pegged it. So you'd stick with a Seagate? Like the ST3120023A? Or maybe a Hitachi 07N9214?

There were quite a few discussions about HD hardware in the last months here.
Seagate Baracuda drives were mentioned to be fast, quiet and reliable.

Yeah... I was on of the ones who recommended them. I guess when it came time to put my money where my mouth was I didn't practice what I preached. (Let's see if I can fit some more clichés in one sentence!) >_<

The Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 drives are relatively silent and quite high speed, particularly the models with the larger buffer.
I believe the newer Samsung drives may make even less noise.

For an external enclosure storing mp3's, I can think of no reason why you'd need the extra buffer space, but most manufacturers (save Samsung, who gives 3 years on all) offer longer warranties with the larger buffer models.

Why, Garf? Bad experience with it?

Anyway, some facts:

the extra cache does not go unnoticed if your boot and swap partitions are on that disc. Everyone will tell you it feels faster, and I think so too. But if you're only playing back flacs, which is perfectly linear access, and hardly requires any speed either, you won't need modern hard drive speeds at all. Even a newer 5400rpm will be more than adequate.

the reason to shell out the extra cash would be another one: Maxtor offers a longer warranty period on the 8mb version. Depending on where you live, the warranty is 1 to 2 yrs standard, and 3yrs on the 8mb version.

Seagate on the other hand offers only standard 1 to 2 years warranty on any non-scsi model. They do seem to sell the most reliable drives, but if you're one of the unlucky few with a failing drive, there's no third year warranty for you...

Don't get a Hitachi/IBM: they're very fine performers, but they'll run hotter than other brands in a USB enclosure.

Ooh, I almost forgot. But luckily I see Audible mentions Samsung. They have good warranty, and iirc they have released large 5400rpm models. These should be the coolest solution for an external enclosure.

The Barracudas are indeed very good, cheap and quiet, but I had no problems with Maxtor either.

Western Digital is decent, but not great (I know because I have 7 of them - apparently they tend to have power problems).

Of course IBM deathstar successors should still be avoided (bought 5, then 4 dead after 8 months only) . Bummer

I'd avoid Toshiba (mechanical problems on some models).
Haven't tried Fujitsu & Samsung
One thing's for sure, my brother is delighted with his Seagate

Cheers...

Yes, dead disk after 1 day of use. Looking around the web reveals a lot of people having dead 6Y120?0's.

From the preliminary reliability data on the newer Hitachi GST (they bought IBM's HDD division) drives, the 180GXP and probably 120GXP do not seem to have the nagging reliability problems of the 75 and later 60GXPs, and are quite high performance.

However as Patsoe has said, since these drives are not the coolest running models, and performance in streaming smallish linearly written files across a USB pipe is essentially irrelevant (for any modern drive), there is no good reason to buy them.

A 5400 rpm model with a long warranty would probably be ideal, but it could be tough to find a 120GB model for cheap enough to justify any decrease in warranty period.

Maxtor sells very large (200, 250, 300GB) 5400 rpm models with extended warranties, but they seem to be rather overpriced....

Perhaps they're not as good as they used to be..

Anyhow here's a short text about harddrive failure (from a data recovery company):

http://www.dataclinic.ca/hard-disk-failures.htm

Hmmm, the reliability statistics over at storagereview are starting to seem to suggest you're right... I better get my stuff backed-up then, since I got one too...

For what it's worth: I've got a WD1200JB (8MB cache). I put it in a 3.5" combo enclosure (both USB 2.0 and FireWire) and it's a real joy to use: it's fast (very fast I might add; lots faster than my built-in HD (I've got a laptop with a 40GB 4,200 rpm IBM/Hitachi disk)), it doesn't get hot, and it's barely audible (I can only hear it spin up and spin down and it's sitting about 2 feet (ca. 60 cm) away from my right ear).

Never regretted buying this disk.


Regards,

Rob

once upon a time, there was a guy whos last drive was a Maxtor 80gb 8mb cache one. it was reeaally loud. the drive before that was also a maxtor, 40gb 5400rpm, and he was quite pleased with it (real good performance for 5400, and not loud at all). so he thought to himself, why not get another maxtor for his beloved pc. and that was the beginning of the desaster. he couldn't sleep anymore while letting gordianknot do his nightly buisness, and it happemd to be that all his friends who came to his house ran away in disgust, as they couldn't hear their own voice over the terrible sound coming from the evil drive.
the poor man soon had no friends to call his own anymore, was a nervous wreckage and started to cramp for no reason (maybe this was the result of the drugs he took by then, to calm his wound ears, who knows).
one day, he gazed up in the sky and shouted: 'why?! what have I done?'
a deep warm and friendly voice from above aswered:' my son, to seek out the root of evil, you don't have to go far. the burden you carry is a heavy one, but...' 'äh, uhm, what?' the guy interrupted.
'ah, what the heck' the friendly voice said and continoued: 'you bought a damn loud hd fool, get rid of it!'.
and he did was he was told. and there was much rejoicing.
he bought a new wd 80gb 7200rpm 2mb cache and lived happily ever after.
end of story.

this drive is realy quiet, I can barely hear it at all.
so the bottom line is, I unfortunatly can't say for sure if this 80er maxtor without the 8mb would have been quieter, but I strongly suggest not to buy any maxtor 7200 drives, as the higher cache woudn't make it any less noisy.

The main CPU I do my ripping and encoding on is my work PC (shame on me!) I don't think my employer would like me installing a HD on their machine!

To the rest of you... Thanks for your opinions. I'll definitely take them into consideration!

check out

http://www.silentpcreview.com

for all your silent computing needs...

I've been trying to silent my PC for about 3 years now..

I had old Samsung drives when they were supposed to be good.. i was never overwhelmed with them..

My Seagate Barracuda IV's came next and were indeed a breath of fresh air... VERY quiet... i've always wanted space for my files too tho so have gone for the 80gig cuda models.. recently i've had to get the new Seagate 7200.7 drives.. they're not quite as quiet as the CudaIV but my CudaIV is not as quiet as the single platter standards bearing quiet drive the 40gig model...

FDB bearings are the key to a hdd approaching quietness... the new king tho it seems is samsung again.. I've got a 160gig 8meg cache p80 samsung drive coming for £100 delivered, there is no equivelant seagate with 8meg, and they are slightly more money.. and the one thing u can hear with cudas is the disc access so i look forward to this being reduced with the samsung as they have technology to reduce the thrashing sound on access, and a lot of people are rating the new samsungs, even next to the CudaIV... i'll be able to post opinions as and when i get it.. i'm hopefull... the samsung is supposed to be a VERY fast drive tho, something that the seagate drives aren't really.. somewhere on the silentpc site there is a review of cudaV/7200.7, the hitachi (IBM) and the Samsung drives... the CudaIV is still marginally quieter but the performance increases of the samsung are hilighted.. plus its the capacity, 160gig on 2 platter i think

Also one of my Cuda drives is causing me trouble, i fear it may be on the way out.. files are getting fried.. windows is crashing when trying to access them.. on the whole tho i have had 4 cuda drives and used them regularly no probs for 2 years... 2 of which are in silentdrive enclosures which aren't exactly good for the health of the drives as they can overheat..

Unrelated to your original question about buffer performance, I thought I should add this point: Over the last 6 weeks, 5 people I know have lost a total of 7 Maxtor drives, due to critical failure, myself included. I would recommend for you to stay away from Maxtor. As far as humanly possible.
Also, me and my father both bought Maxtor drives at around the same time, and within a week, if not a few days, the "liquid bearing" was no longer silent.

2 of my maxtor and IBM drives just started making atrocious noises too....good thing I just got 2 WD 120s...*sigh* RMA time...