<<<The new Quantum Atlas Series has a 1080 that has a meg of cache and runs at 7200 rpm, give you an 8ms time. Don't know if you would be able to take advantage of that speed and the drive is a bit more expensive at $269 list from Pro Direct. The Quantum Tempest Series is also new using a similar technology. It is their econo model. The 1280 runs 4500 rpm with a smaller 128k cache and gives an advertised 10.5ms time. It only runs $245 though. I would go for the extra capacity unless you are going to buy a FWB SCSI card or something since you Macs built in SCSI may not let you realize the benefit of the faster drive.>>>
Well, I do have SCSI-2 on the internal bus (Fast SCSI - which is what I'll be using for this HD), and it's the same chip/bus as on the 9500 and the PowerTower Pro series. The only step up would be a Fast&Wide or UltraSCSI card, but from the specs on those PowerTower Pro's with GOOD HD's in them, it certainly makes a heck of a difference, so I'm definitely hoping to get something with a good speed quotient. Decibel level might make the difference between the two drives you listed above, if the faster drive were also quieter, it would probably tip the scales in that direction (they're both in the right price range). I'm sure either one will be faster than my currect 2nd drive. It's a pretty old (3 years) 540Mb mechanism with a 14ms access time. It's only about 66% the speed of the 7500's standard 540Mb quantum drive (which has 12ms access and is dead silent for all practical purposes). I'm sure the rpm speed is different on the two as well (and the number of heads).
I think most drives now are quieter than ones in the past. I was at a friend's house the other day playing Civilization II on his PC. They have an old 386 box they don't use much right next to it with an ancient 40mb drive (one of the first 40mb drives available, I'm sure!)....it sounded more or less like one of those old 5.25" floppy drives, it was so loud!
I never pay full advertised price for hardware (sometimes you can't find software for lower than advertised...seems they hold to those prices pretty strictly, depending on the product...I get the big stuff for educational prices still, which is WAY cheaper than list :)
