300gb Drive from Deals page. Is it a joke?

[Joshua]

A 300gb drive at 5400rpm with a 2mb cache??? How insanely slow do you mind accessing 1/3rd of a Terabyte?? OMG! What is Maxtor thinking??

Outpost - Maxtor 300GB Drive for $239.99 after Rebate! (Posted by: Apex)
Need HUGE storage for your ReplayTV? You can get this absolutely enormous 300GB 5400RPM 2MB Buffer drive for just $239.99 after rebate (Expires 7/24/03).

Check out competitor pricing at PriceGrabber (about $350 is the lowest competitor price), and there`s no rebate available for those places. PRICEGRABBER
Get it from Outpost for $239.99 after rebate (rebate is linked right there on the product page). OUTPOST

[IrishSS]

Originally posted by DarkFury


It's all about the application of said equipment. Like they were saying, in a Replay TV, you want a slower drive because it generates less heat. They don't see the benefits of the higher RPM drives.

The only thing I'm wondering is... I thought that Replay TVs could only support 160GB and smaller drives... :shrug: I guess someone must've found their way around that limitation. :D

People on the AVS Forums are using (2) 250Gb drives without issues... Supposedly there is an upper limit though to what the RTV can access in recording time. Forgot the exact number.

[jamespf]

Originally posted by SnotRocket
A 300gb drive at 5400rpm with a 2mb cache??? How insanely slow do you mind accessing 1/3rd of a Terabyte?? OMG! What is Maxtor thinking??

I'm not a hard drive expert or anything, but I think that RPMs on the super huge drives are less relevant than on the smaller ones. On the huge ones, the data is packed really close together. So in one revolution of the huge HDs, more data is read than in one revolution of the smaller HDs.

I think you have to use a diffrent metric when comparing huge drives to normal drives, like access time, or transfer rate.

[PeteyBoy23]

I'd love if this could work on my TiVO... but I don't know, I think 240 hours or so, is the most you can do :D

[Joshua]

Actually, RPM speed absolutely matters. It's not a matter of how densely packed the data is, it is now many times one point on the disc actually rotates around under the needle per minute. The faster it spins, the more chances per minute the head will have to find and access your data. The RPM should directly affect the access time. Here at work, the super servers with scsi drives are now coming in with 15,000rpm drives for this exact reason.

Aside from RPM, having a tiny 2mb buffer on a drive that big means that the drive will spend a lot more time pushing out data directly off the disk which again, will affect access times and overall drive data speed. As mentioned, if your use is for something like replay tv, then you'll naturally want a slower drive since it's quieter, but the bigger buffer would still be nice even in that application.


Originally posted by jamespf


I'm not a hard drive expert or anything, but I think that RPMs on the super huge drives are less relevant than on the smaller ones. On the huge ones, the data is packed really close together. So in one revolution of the huge HDs, more data is read than in one revolution of the smaller HDs.

I think you have to use a diffrent metric when comparing huge drives to normal drives, like access time, or transfer rate.

[joemi]

Off topic, but dang.. SnotRocket: the spider pic in your sig, you find that in your house?

[vroxx]

I got one to see if it will work in my xbox, but everything I read says theres a 137gb limit... I think they just used a WD 160GB or 200GB drive and didnt format it properly... 300GB 5400RPM 2MB buffer is way faster than reading off the dvd's.

[Apex]

Originally posted by SnotRocket
Actually, RPM speed absolutely matters. It's not a matter of how densely packed the data is, it is now many times one point on the disc actually rotates around under the needle per minute. The faster it spins, the more chances per minute the head will have to find and access your data. The RPM should directly affect the access time. Here at work, the super servers with scsi drives are now coming in with 15,000rpm drives for this exact reason.


Both matter. Density does not affect access time and throughput as much as rotational speed, but it still does.

This being said, this is a good STORAGE drive. I wouldn't say it's an ideal choice for programs or your OS, but for storage, it's a good choice. 2 Of these would be a great choice for your ReplayTV if you want to spend your life watching television. ;)

[ski]

Original topic about the spider (http://www.gotapex.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=59505)

It's too bad the link in that thread doesn't produce anything anymore, but you can see the pics in there :)