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General discussion

can someone explaing external hard drive specifications

by assilartemis Oct 9, 2008 8:52AM PDT

Hi, I am looking to buy an external hard drive and am working on researching which one will best suit my needs. However, I am running into a bit of a snag, I am struggling to understand what the actual specifications mean and how to interpret them. So I am hoping that someone can help explain exactly what the terms Spindle speed, Buffer size, Storage Hard Drive / External Data Transfer Rate (For External Drive), Seek Time, and Average Latency mean and what effect those specs have on the drive I'm buying. Thank you.

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Help us understand why these matter to you?

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Oct 9, 2008 10:42AM PDT

While each item on google can find it defined let's start with how a common hard disk works at http://www.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk.htm

While you digest that, tell us what you are doing that would require you to build up a spreadsheet of the products under consideration. Tell more, get more.
Bob

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