What am I looking for in a Hard Drive?

[Happy_Demon]

Pretty self explanatory by title. Newbie to computers in general and was wondering mostly what I am looking for in a Hard Drive? I'm picking out parts for a computer and this seemed like a good Hard Drive for the buck:

Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model WD800JD, OEM Drive Only

- Specifications -

Capacity: 80GB
Average Seek Time: 8.9 ms
Buffer: 8MB
Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM
Interface: Serial ATA
Features: Not specified
Manufacturer Warranty: 3 years
Packaging: OEM Drive Only

Model#: WD800JD
Item#: N82E16822135106

$63.00

I'm wondering mostly:
1) What is the "Buffer,"
2) How much of a difference is the rotational speed? On looking at NewEgg this seemed to be the thing that made the Hard Drives the most expensive.
3) What is most important for gaming?

Much obliged for any concerns or comments, thanks.

 

[SFR]

well I have that exact hard drive... and I just happened to be thinking about buying the EXACT same one.. as my second HD..



to answer your questions:

1) What is the "Buffer,"

The buffer is the amount of memory on the drive that holds the most recently written or stored data. 8mb buffer can hold more data, which means less time seeking data on the disk

2) How much of a difference is the rotational speed? On looking at NewEgg this seemed to be the thing that made the Hard Drives the most expensive.

the RPM's revolutions per minute tell you how fast the disk is spinning.. thus how fast the read write heads will be able to read or write the information on the disk.

3) What is most important for gaming?

buffer and RPM's make a lot of difference.
but for gamers, RAM and video card are the most important

 

[Happy_Demon]

All right thank you.

 

[Praetor]

What is most important for gaming?

Prolly the most useful question heehee. Gaming performance and HDD performance are not as tightly related as some OEMs would have you believe (of course I need to qualify that by saying that it depends on the rest of your system). With most games, the initial impact comes from loading levels and stuff ... and that time will be reduced with faster drives hoever harddrive access within a level will not recieve worthwile advantages from those uber high-rotational-speed drives help the sequential read and write operations ... a lot of the activity while playing a game is 'random'.

In general, a physically faster drive is nice but for most purposes, increasing the cache on the drive is an adequate subsitute (which is why the 16MB Maxtors can damn near keep up with the 10K Raptors)

 

[Blade]

if you want to be playing games, why not go a tep up and buy a 120GB or 160GB, i used to have an 80GB and have come to realise that its not much

 

[Praetor]

1. Size doesnt make that much of a difference
2. Um... budget constraints?

 

[Mafesto]

*holds in the pun*
uhm.. yea.. size doesnt matter much. it pretty much depends on what you are using the drive for. if its going raid. wont need to be a huge drive right? since your going to be having alot of little-medium drives chained. or how much you want to store. ive got a tiny maxtor 40gig I think it is.. maybe 38.. dunno.. ive yet to ever hit more than 90% of used space on it yet. and that is with all my junk(even stuff I dont ever use) installed.
going on rumor and third hand stuff here.. but whatever you do. if you are thinking of going above 100gig. dont go for maxtor, ive been told and warned they tend to go "poof" and burst to flame inside your case. ive heard of three people so far ^_^

 

[Praetor]

if its going raid. wont need to be a huge drive right?

Depends on the RAID level

if you are thinking of going above 100gig. dont go for maxtor, ive been told and warned they tend to go "poof" and burst to flame inside your case. ive heard of three people so far ^_^

Tell those people that my magic Maxtors harddrives have a button on the side that generates cash in my wallet