Help! Are 5400 Rpm Enough?, Planing to buy a HDD. 5400 RPM or 7200? Options

[$-EURO-$]

Hi I planning to buy the Matrix-Chip and a HDD few days after Xmas.
I dont know if 5400 RPM would be enough or 7200 would be feelable
better (sorry for my bad english, but I'm german ). Is there a huge or
measureable difference between a 2MB and a 8MB cache?
What is the effect of locking your drive? I know this sounds more
like newbie questions but I dont want to recieve an anwser like:
yes it is or no its not. thats why i post it where people are knowing
what they are talking about.

Thanks in advance

[nonamer66]

you should always take a 7200 rpm over a 5400 rpm any time you choose one. There really isn't that much in price difference.

http://www.pricewatch.com

[cykiller]

a 5400rppm drive would be perfect to get, being as though the regular hd was 5400rpm anyway, if u are planning on taking the drive out in the future then go for a 7200. but 5400rpm works fine.

[$-EURO-$]

Thanks so far.
Whats with the difference of 2MB and 8MB?

[BliXBox]

I was planning on buying a new HD for my XBOX soon.

I was actively looking for a 5400rpm drive. I thought this was the prefered way to go to keep heat and noise levels down!

Am I correct, or should I pay the little extra and get the 7200rpm drive.

[Wong Hung Lo]

Go to http://www.pricewatch.com and look for 120 gig drives. The first one's you'll see are the Samsungs. They are cheap and work good.

[cykiller]

QUOTE ($-EURO-$ @ Dec 16 2002, 04:39 PM)

Thanks so far. Whats with the difference of 2MB and 8MB?

most all of today's IDE hard drives include a 2MB memory buffer. This means the drive can access up to 2MB of recently used data without having to look for it on its discs. a 8MB buffer which provides a noticeable performance boost, at a slightly higher price.

[CooLJoE]

I don't think you'll see a performance difference between 7200RPM and 5400RPM in the Xbox. Especially since it can't use higher than 66mb/sec data transfer rate (ATA/66).

Now if you want to be able to use the drive in your PC later on, go with 7200RPM. Otherwise you can use a 5400RPM just fine.

5400RPM drives will be quieter and produce less heat.

[Speedo]

Please people...

.. dont buy all that crap about getting a 7200rpm. The wont have any use for it in either your Xbox or computer, except for one thing, if you are into making films on the computer its a good idea to get a 7200rpm. For any other use, game, music, OS, Xbox, watching movies, etc etc etc... 5400 is all you need.

If you find a cheap 5400 go for that... if its the same price, go for 5400 cause its cooler and will last longer.

/Speedo

[Andy]

QUOTE (CooLJoE @ Dec 17 2002, 07:48 AM)

I don't think you'll see a performance difference between 7200RPM and 5400RPM in the Xbox. Especially since it can't use higher than 66mb/sec data transfer rate (ATA/66). Now if you want to be able to use the drive in your PC later on, go with 7200RPM. Otherwise you can use a 5400RPM just fine. 5400RPM drives will be quieter and produce less heat.

Its just to change the ata 66 cable for an ata 100 cable and woops know it can go whit 100mb/sec

[Col.Havoc]

Well, you could go with a very nice 100 gb Western Digital HD for $190. Futureshop is having a sale, buy for regular 239.99 and get a $50 mail in rebate.

[$-EURO-$]

QUOTE (Speedo @ Dec 17 2002, 02:26 PM)

For any other use, game, music, OS, Xbox, watching movies, etc etc etc... 5400 is all you need. /Speedo

So there will be no recognizable difference between 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM?
Even if i change the ata cable? 2MB and 8MB wont shorter the loading (on xbox)?
sure?

[gainpresence]

QUOTE (Col.Havoc @ Dec 17 2002, 02:12 PM)

Well, you could go with a very nice 100 gb Western Digital HD for $190. Futureshop is having a sale, buy for regular 239.99 and get a $50 mail in rebate.

oh my god, at newegg.com (somewhere around a 9.6 rating at resellerrating, and i give them a ten). a 120GB WD Special Edition (8MB) HDD is only $165 (no rebate) with free 2day shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?...D+120GB+special

i have ordered and my HDD got here the next day!!


EDIT: I personally think it's definitely worth the extra $10 for the 8MB cache, my 2MB cache ata133 hdd runs at 23000KBs and my 8MB cache ATA100 HDD runs at 47000KBs (both 7200rpm).

This post has been edited by gainpresence: Dec 17 2002, 11:31 PM

[Funkdafied]

QUOTE (Speedo @ Dec 17 2002, 02:26 PM)

.. dont buy all that crap about getting a 7200rpm. The wont have any use for it in either your Xbox or computer, except for one thing, if you are into making films on the computer its a good idea to get a 7200rpm. For any other use, game, music, OS, Xbox, watching movies, etc etc etc... 5400 is all you need.

thats not true..
for things such as OS and games, a 7200RPM hard drive *will* make a difference..
these things are constantly acessing the hard drive, and a faster hard drive (which will also have lower seek times) will make a difference in loading times...

[CooLJoE]

QUOTE (Andy @ Dec 17 2002, 01:49 PM)

QUOTE (CooLJoE @ Dec 17 2002, 07:48 AM) I don't think you'll see a performance difference between 7200RPM and 5400RPM in the Xbox. Especially since it can't use higher than 66mb/sec data transfer rate (ATA/66). Now if you want to be able to use the drive in your PC later on, go with 7200RPM. Otherwise you can use a 5400RPM just fine. 5400RPM drives will be quieter and produce less heat. Its just to change the ata 66 cable for an ata 100 cable and woops know it can go whit 100mb/sec

Umm, I've seen tests that prove otherwise. People tried the cable swap and the load times and audio CD rips didn't get any amount faster worth noting. And considering ATA/100's great acheivement over ATA/66 is speed, this would basically mean that the Xbox isn't running ATA/100 capable hardware. That or the people who designed Xbox purposely locked out ATA/100 speeds for whatever insane reason.