URGENT HELP NEEDED!!

ringo747

ringo747

ringo747

Soldato
Joined
1 Feb 2006
Posts
8,188
Hi guys,

I am almost out of space on my machine and need to buy a new disk urgently within a few days.. I was looking at the Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 300GB ST3300831A ATA-100 8MB Cache on "this week only" offer. Anyone used this disk and would recommend? I dont want a maxtor. WD is the only other option in my opinion.

I will be using this for storing a lot of multimedia like photo/video.
Should I be going for a 16mb cache in that case?

Any info greatly appreciated.

Cheers Jonny
 
thanks for quick reply.. maxtors have caused me many headaches in the past so i guess it makes it a little easier if i have less options!

I have 2x maxtor 200gb 8mb cache at the moment but want to phase these out gradually. i am assuming the 16-mb cache doesnt make much odds?

Thanks
 
jonnyc747 said:
Just noticing that the ST3300831A doesnt have NCQ like the ST3300831AS

What is NCQ and should I be using NCQ drives?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I think NCQ its about the hard drive having to do less work as it puts commands in a queue? And as for 16mb cache, I personally couldn't care less. 8MB is fine for me, I care more about my data than the size of my cache. Smids will give you a better answer.
 
jonnyc747 said:
Just noticing that the ST3300831A doesnt have NCQ like the ST3300831AS

What is NCQ and should I be using NCQ drives?

Thanks
Click to expand...
All Seagates from 7200.7 up have NCQ. It is a more effiecient way of retrieving data when lots of things try to access the HDU at the same time.
EDIT: Explicit, you have forced me to answer more clearly now with your last comment :rolleyes: :p.

NCQ is native command queuing and basically the drive reorders commands for data access. By doing so, it can retrieve all data by reordering the commands and not performing them in the same order as they arrive in. This means data can be accessed in 1 stroke of the head, say instead of 1.5 strokes.
 
Last edited:
smids, i dont like to question your comments but as far as I can see from specs on the Seagate website that this drive on the "this week only" definitely doesnt have NCQ. Im not even sure if my maxtor diamond max 10 has it or not? Do all motherboards support NCQ?

Thanks
 
jonnyc747 said:
smids, i dont like to question your comments but as far as I can see from specs on the Seagate website that this drive on the "this week only" definitely doesnt have NCQ. Im not even sure if my maxtor diamond max 10 has it or not? Do all motherboards support NCQ?

Thanks
Click to expand...
Seagates have a special separate chip for NCQ - much better than all other solutions which I was lead to believe was on all models starting from the 7200.7 series of drives.

However. I have had a look and that drive is IDE. IDE doesn't use NCQ IIRC, as it uses TCQ (tagged command queuing like on SCSI drives). That is how I think it works :). Sorry, I should have looked at the drive properly.

Also, you need a controller which supports it for NCQ.
 
Guys,

I have ordered a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 NCQ 300GB ST3300831AS SATA 8MB Cache that is on offer this week.

Will keep you updated on how it performs!

Cheers
 
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