Buying a hard drives

[Damien Elmes]

Matthew Hawkins <matthew at topic.com.au> writes:

> On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Simon Haddon wrote:
> 
> >  Cougar told me that the IBM hard disks are the best performing at the 
> > moment.
> 
> The 75GXP series (and any later model) - basically your DTLA-xxxx disks,
> are _one_ of the fastest IDE drives.  Another is the Quantum Fireball LM.
> The LM is actually faster on the outer tracks, but overall the 75GXP
> beats it (it's almost consistently 30Mb/s).

well, on that note, i'd be interested in people posting a benchmark of
their drives. this is my ata100/7200RPM baracuda III, after a few runs
the numbers start to settle down:

reflex$ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.78 seconds =164.10 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  1.85 seconds = 34.59 MB/sec

you have a point about having the peace of mind of something like
cougar, matthew. 

i've got a 5400RPM, ATA100 40 gig IBM drive in another box, and its
scores are quite similar:

respite$ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.91 seconds =140.66 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  2.29 seconds = 27.95 MB/sec

(note that it's running at ATA66).

that drive was purchased from cougar, when they hit the $300 mark.

having said all that, the markets are still a good place to shop. it
encourages you to be a more assertive customer, but then some of these
people at the markets have legitimate computer stores, and will hand
you a business card when you make a purchase. chasing them up with the
help of a consumer body wouldn't be terribly difficult if something
did go horribly wrong.

cheers!


-- 
Damien Elmes
resolve at repose.cx