Which HD / HD buffer size for nForce430?

[dillo]

Hi,

I have just purchased this board. I have also been offered a new hard disk: Western Digital 250 GB
SATA-2, model CAVIAR SE, WD2500JS with 8MB buffer.

Since I have no real need for RAID and want this PC to be as quiet and low-power as possible, this would
be the only hard disk.

There also is a 16 MB buffer version of the drive above, model CAVIAR SE16, WD2500 KS. I have read
on a magazine that the max transfer rate is:

90 MB/s. for CAVIAR SE16
72.25 MB/s. for CAVIAR SE

I need to know if it is worth, in my case, to wait and buy the SE16 model, not yet available where I live.
Specifically:

1) are those numbers reliable? Can 8 MB alone make all that difference?

2) would it matter, on THIS board? I mean, the nForce430 controller and only ONE of those two disks:
would I really see a 22% increase in performance with the 16 MB model? More, less, no difference?
Ditto for any other HD model available with 8 or 16 MB buffer size.

If relevant, I will use this PC with Linux Fedora or SUSE as an (almost) single user workstation for heavy
compiling of C programs, video editing, processing lots of text files with Perl scripts, plus usual office stuff.

Any feedback is really appreciated. The hard disk is the only piece missing to build this PC, please give
advice!

Of course, if you can point any SATA 2 disk of the same capacity which would be (with this board and
controller):

at least as reliable
not noisier!
equally fast or faster

than the Western Digital, please tell me.

Thank you in advance for any feedback,

D.

[chunkey]

...hdparm -t numbers of my WDC WD2500KS:

Timing buffered disk reads:  176 MB in  3.01 seconds =  58.40 MB/sec

hddtemp: ~32°C

but I think you should go with the RAID version (WDC WD2500YD)

 Timing buffered disk reads:  176 MB in  3.01 seconds =  58.41 MB/sec

hddtemp: ~27°C


A little bit more expensive, but 5°C cooler .


BTW:
what do you get with hdparm -t /dev/sd?



Anyway... in (software) RAID 0

 Timing buffered disk reads:  348 MB in  3.01 seconds = 115.49 MB/sec

[dillo]

Originally Posted by chunkey

... I think you should go with the RAID version (WDC WD2500YD)...
A little bit more expensive, but 5°C cooler .

the problem here is that, right now, I can't even find the WD2500KS, never mind the
YD (besides the fact that I have no plans to do RAID in this PC)
I am hoping to find somebody who can post the same data as you did, but about the
WD2500JS. I can only chose between that and the WD2500KS (or switch vendor
altogether, tips welcome!)

what do you get with hdparm -t /dev/sd?
]

Nothing, because I have no disk at all right now, hence my post I need help to
chose!

Thanks,

D.