Western Digital External Hard Drive Home Page
How do YOu find out the HARD DRIVE Speed on External Drives?
I have spent 2 hours all over google, mfr home pages and can’t get a concrete answer..
Each of these drives is an external usb 2.0 1GB hard drive, each is $110
But which one is the better performer and HOW do I find out?
Western Digital 1GB EXT USB Hard Drive
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=353#jump11
Seagate FreeAgent/Desk 1GB EXT Hard Drive
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/freeagent/freeagent_desk/
so what are the specs and HOW do you find them?
Isn’t 7200RPM better then 5400RPM?
if one is 7200 is that enough to buy it over the other one?
also what about mb buffer? 32mb buffer v/s 8mb buffer?
please DO TELL!!
thanks again!
oNe
My Book Essential Edition 1TB:
http://en.kioskea.net/guide/1009110-western-digital-my-book-essential-edition-2-0-1tb-usb-2-0-7200-rpm
You will need to search for the specifications online. Its simple to do a google search. Put in the name of the hard drive like below. add in the size (1TB) and put rpm at the end. The same can be done with the word buffer instead of rpm
Go to google.com and type in:
My Book Essential Edition 1TB rpm
You will then get links listing the RPM (rotations per minute) of the hard drive. If the hard drive spins at a faster rate this means data can be accessed at a faster speed. It uses a little more power then a slower hard drive but in most cases is a moot point. (example: copying files is faster on a 7200 rpm hard drive vs 5400)
The link for Seagate FreeAgent/Desk 1GB EXT Hard Drive: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/freeagent/freeagent_desk/ is for the 2TB version you should go to http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-FreeAgent-External-ST310005FDA2E1-RK-Silver/dp/B001FWEETK
When searching for the Seagate model I typed in:
FreeAgent Desk USB 1tb rpm
The first link in Google was http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148356
The specifications listed the hard drive as 7200 rpm, both drives have the same rpm. If you have the money to spend and want to get the fastest hard drive you can go for the higher rpm and buffer size.
Buffer size:
The final factor that impacts performance for a hard drive is the amount of buffer on the drive. A drive’s buffer is an amount of RAM on the drive to store frequently accessed data from the drive. Since RAM is faster at transferring data than the drive head operation, it increases the speed of the drive. The more buffer on the drive, the more data that can be stored in the cache to decrease the amount of physical drive operation. Most drives today come with a 8MB drive buffer. Some performance drives such come with a larger 16MB buffer.