Read the stuff on this page and make up your own mind on AS vs NS
<http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/244490-32-st31000340ns-st31000340as>
Maybe I would do it for the main drive but not for a backup drive which
would run infrequently. But I wouldn't be willing to pay much for the
difference. You've gotta have a backup drive anyhow. Manufacturer's
MTBF is a sort of a phantom. I don't know if you can interpret it in a
rational way.
An SATA 2 drive will be happy running slower and it really won't be all
that much slower. The spec difference is in the instantaneous transfer
rate. Drives spend much of their time trying to find and get to the
data and not too much on the actual data transfer time once they've
found it. At 7200 rpm it takes 8 ms for the disk to make one rotation
and for the head to read the entire track. But when the read head first
gets to that track, on average, it's got to wait for 1/2 rotation to get
to the right starting point. Head motion and rotational delays are a big
part of total time. That is especially so on a multi-tasking computer
where other processes may be vying for use of the same drive and
disrupting the smooth streaming of data with demands for the read/write
head to move somewhere else on the drive. There is no "instantaneous
transfer" going on while the heads are bounding hither and yon between
tracks.
Chuck Norcutt
Andrew Fildes wrote:
> About to buy a Seagate for the MacPro - probably a 750 to match the
> one in there but that depends on the offers.
> Certainly not going to pay double for an Apple rebadged one!
> Coupla questions for the wise geeks here -
> 1. Is the difference between AS and NS grade significant?
> 2. My machine won't go to SATA 2's speed - will a SATA 2 drive simply
> run slower but happy? (I thinks so but...)
> Andrew Fildes
> afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
> On 01/02/2009, at 12:27 PM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
>
>> For large drives don't use anything other than NTFS. FAT32 partitions
>> larger than 32MB can be created but Microsoft didn't want you to do
>> that. They are very inefficient. That's why the non-arbitrary size
>> restriction is there. FAT and FAT32 are very efficient for sequential
>> access but very inefficient for random access and get less and less
>> efficient as the drive gets larger and larger.
>
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