buffers on hard drives
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Posted on Jan 16, 2006 04:54 pm
fortymile
Member Since: Jan 18, 2003
ok guys, im sorry. i did a search for my last thread on hard drives. cant find it.
i really just need to get a clear explanation of why a hard drive's buffer size is important. you see, there's a 160 GB seagate on sale for 89 bucks at best buy, which seems an extraordinary deal. but it only has a 2 MB buffer. is it worth getting? would it deliver the goods as far as streaming audio samples into my sequencer? how about using it for recording ON to?
the drive is 7200 rpm.
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Jan 16, 2006 06:20 pm My Maxtor 200gb hard disk has a 8mb buffer. I think I'd be tempted to look for one that has 8mb: www.tigerdirect.com/appli...p?EdpNo=1477509
or maybe this one:
www.tigerdirect.com/appli...11&NoMapp=0
Are you going Eide, or SATA? If EIDE, then the ones above might be a good choice. Cheaper after the rebate too.
I swiped this from www.padus.com: "Every writing drive is equipped with internal memory that the drive uses as a data buffer. The data buffer stores data as they arrive from the computer, then transfers them to disc. The size of the data buffer for an individual writing drive is critical to error-free recording. A slow-down in the transfer of data from the CPU caused by high network traffic or the small interruption of hard disk thermal re-calibration, can interrupt recording if the buffer is not large enough to "wait out" the interruption. If the data buffer for staging data before writing them to the disc empties (buffer under-run error), the recording process will abort and the disc be ruined."
According to this, a bigger data buffer gives more security in transferring data. Did that explain it alright?
Jan 16, 2006 08:23 pm Just bought a Maxtor 200G 8MB buffer at Staples for $89.
Jan 16, 2006 08:24 pm ah, so thats for like cd-r drives, though. i guess a hard drive buffer serves a similar function. not sure what that implies for hard drives. seems like they wouldnt sell one if most computers dished out info too fast for it to keep up with the inflow. and it sounds like the buffer is not really used in outflow.
so if i were using the drive to dish out samples to my recording app, buffer size wouldnt even come into play. and it would be safe to assume that it's probably going to write data onto itself pretty well in most 'normal' circumstances, like with just regular files. not saying with music, because then, i dont know. if you were doing a multitrack session on it, maybe too much data would be streaming in...?
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Jan 16, 2006 08:30 pm memory on a hard drive (the buffer) will be way faster than the write speed, so if the HD controller sends data that can't be written fast enough, the more buffer the better. Go for the 8meg, newegg's got them for around 90$ as well for the seagate at/100 drives.
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Jan 16, 2006 08:34 pm oop, forgot, I had a AMD barton 2500, with a 2 meg 120g drive running at at100. I could get 2 - 5 tracks to write without problem, but 6 - 8 I never got to write without snaps, crackles, and pops. I'm going SATA this time around. I attribute that to the fact that the HD buffer was just too small to digest that many tracks at once, keeping everything flowing smoothly to the HD for writing.
Course, that's just my opinion, it could be something else, but the system was a clean build, running w2k, w 512m ram, 1010lt.
If you're only tracking 1 or 2 at a time, you'll probably never see the difference.
Jan 16, 2006 09:17 pm ive been told to avoid maxtor and western digital by db and nozie, i think. the only 160 drive thats cheap enough that i've seen is the seagate 160, but it has the 2 mb buffer. office depot has a 200 gb western digital for a great, great price, but after everything db told me, im really hesitant to pick that up.
whats newegg?
Jan 16, 2006 09:36 pm I have only Maxtor...
Jan 16, 2006 10:16 pm ok then you told me to avoid western digital because they've crashed on you.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Jan 16, 2006 10:30 pm I think it may have been me shortly after I cooked an egg on my WD drive. I am the Seagate freak, and yes your theory is correct. For the purpose you are going to use it for it will work fine. It will also write fine as well with a 2 meg buffer. I would even go so far as to say you could probably get 4 to 6 track recording at once with that buffer. I do still have a couple fo WD drives as well. But they are only for storage. They go in, run for 10 minutes and then come back out. I wouldnt trust them any further then that. Maxtor is pretty good as well. I know dB runs mostly them, and I just put one in the boyz box for their music and pix.
Jan 16, 2006 10:45 pm when you say a 4 to 6 track recording, do you mean writing 4 to 6 tracks at once? that would be for like live band recording, then, if thats what you mean? as a home recordist i never record more than one track at a time. am i understanding you correctly?
im not even sure what im going to use this drive for yet, thats why i'm asking all these questions.
glad to maxtor checks out. that makes things much easier as the cheap maxtor drive is spacious and has a large buffer
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Jan 16, 2006 10:56 pm Yep, that is what I meant forty. you will be able to record that many at one time easily.
And for me the Seagate thing is probably just superstition on my part. I have only lost one Seagate drive, and it was a very old drive and very abused as well. They just seem to work better for me, and I get them at a good price. As well I feel better when I charge a customer for a harddrive. Most assume Seagate is a higher quality drive, dont know if that is true or not but hey it works for me.
Jan 18, 2006 01:00 am [quote]oop, forgot, I had a AMD barton 2500, with a 2 meg 120g drive running at at100. I could get 2 - 5 tracks to write without problem, but 6 - 8 I never got to write without snaps, crackles, and pops. I'm going SATA this time around. I attribute that to the fact that the HD buffer was just too small to digest that many tracks at once, keeping everything flowing smoothly to the HD for writing.
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pjk, was that ATA-100? As in 100mb/sec interface? I think disc rpm has more bearing on how fast it'll write data than the interface. (e.g. a 5400 rpm hard disc with an SATA-150 interface is still much slower than a 7200 rpm hard disc with a ATA-133 interface). But would a 7200 rpm disc with an ATA-100 be appreciably slower than a 7200rpm disc with an ATA-133 interface? interesting question. Anybody got an answer?
Forty, you never said if you have SATA or just ATA as an interface, as that'll make a difference as to what type of drive you can get. I'm guessing ATA for sure, possibly SATA. The description of the optical buffer is no different than a hard disc. The buffer is used to store information that for some reason cannot be written or cannot be sent to it's destination immediately.
Jan 18, 2006 05:05 am i still never picked up what this ata and sata stuff is. i had it once but then forgot it. this is a USB 2.0 drive im trying to get, external.
Jan 18, 2006 07:20 am ATA and SATA are simply different interfaces that go to your hard drive from the mobo. ATA is the long standing standard, SATA is "Serial ATA" which is just faster.
here is some info www.lsilogic.com/technolo...technology.html
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Jan 18, 2006 09:09 am Ken, good question. I know there's disc performance numbers on most drives, in different places around the net. It'd be interesting to compare things like this.
Actually, there's probably web sites dedicated to performance issues like this. I've been researching motherboards, and such lately, and it seems some people get pretty fanatical about this stuff.
Maybe I'll look later . . .
Conversely, if everyone wants to send me a drive of different specs, I'll do a shootout on my new system I'm putting together =).
Jan 18, 2006 09:11 am Best advice, any number in specs, get all those numbers as big as you can afford :-)
Explaining it all just gets WAY out there sometimes...
It all has a factor in how fast the unit operates...the ATA speed is the speed the data gets moved to and from the unit...the seek time and RPM and such related specs indicates how quick the disc and heads can actually find what they are looking for.
For example, just because Windows Explorer shows nice neat folder/file structure doesn't mean all that crap isn't scattered all over the disc surface. One file is often stored across different clusters and even different platters in the hard drive (known as fragmentation), before sending the file it goes all over and finds all the pieces of that file.
This is why defragmenting your drive now and then is a good thing, it makes the drive work less to get what it needs and organizes the data nice and neatly.
Jan 18, 2006 09:16 am if you compare drives with the same RPM's, an ATA 100 is slower than an ATA 133...when the RPM's are different it comes down to, in part, how well maintained the drive is...how much data is on it and how fragmented it is.
Obvoiously there is much more to it than that, but, well, this is a message forum, not a book... :-)
Jan 18, 2006 09:22 am Oh, and to explain a bit on buffers, yes buffers are used in reading, they are used as a sratch pad for the drive to assemble files and such. When you request a file the drive first looks in it's buffer as it's WAY fatser than the drive, so, the bigger the buffer the better chance the file could be cached in the buffer.
ATA can be used interchangably with IDE, they are the same thing, but, if I recall somebody actually owns some sort of copyright on the term IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) so others started using ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment, I think?).
of course, there is also SCSI (pronounced Scuzzy) which is another interface that is loosing popularity it seems. I used SCSI for a while, year ago it was much faster and more stable than IDE, but, IDE (ATA, SATA, whatever) has gained so much ground that I really don't see the benefit in it anymore...other than SCSI chains can have MANY drives on each where ATA can still only have two...and, of course SCSI comes in all sorts of different speeds as well. SCSI-1, SCSI-2, SCSI-3, Ultra SCSI, UltraWide SCSI, the list goes on and each one has it's own nicknames too...
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Jan 18, 2006 10:30 am I read on a review somewhere, that someone was getting a sata II drive to perform very comparable to a scsi 320 something or other. They're certainly in the ballpark with scsi for speed, but probably won't venture very far into the server market, for the reasons mentioned above.
Jan 18, 2006 02:39 pm i think db is passionate about this subject.
i enjoyed the explanation on the buffers and how the drive looks first in its buffer.
if scuzzy's so good i wonder why it fell off in popularity.
Jan 18, 2006 02:41 pm No, db just happens to have been a tech for a couple years...no passion, just exposure :-)
SCSI didn't really catch on so much, at least at consumer levels cuz it was always much more expensive...or that is my take anyway...
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Jan 18, 2006 02:42 pm usually the controllers were hi $$$, or if the motherboard had one built in, it was hi $$$. Also, the drives can be hi $$$ as well.
Better for the business world, when money isn't so much of an object to keep servers running.
IDE had the low cost, and ease of use thing going for it, so it went over well in the highly competitive PC hardware market.
