HD performance

[smartech]

Hi. I just got a "new" HD, from my friend, he bought new one and got me his old.
My current drive is WD 80 GB 8MB buffer 7200 RPM (as in my sig).
And the one that I got is Quantum Fireball 30 GB 2MB buffer 7200 RPM (not bad, acoording it's several years old).

So I want to rearrange my curren partitions and move windows on the smaller one (the "new" 30 GB).
The question is will I have a degradation in performance since it has smaller buffer than current drive?

I also have some question about partition layout, but I'll keep it for separate topic.

 

[SHAWN]

I doubt you will notice much of a difference.

 

[Nitestick]

it shouldn't be a bad drop in performance but probably noticeable

 

[smartech]

I used to think that HD buffer minimizes data losses during read\write, and the major parameter of HD performance is rotation speed which is the same in this case (and ofcourse the interface - IDE, SATA, etc, but it is irrelevant now).
Is the buffer there is actually used as some kind of local RAM?

 

[FghtinIrshNvrDi]

more of a 'cache' since it's so little, but yes. That's what it is. I doubt you'll feel like the computer is slower. Add a few seconds to the boot time, etc. It'll work just fine.

Ryan

 

[smartech]

OK, thanks. I also will put the Page File on the secondary drive (80 GB 8 MB buffer), so the virtual memory will be faster to access to, also it's always recommended to put it on different physical drive with windows.