Buffer Vs Average Seek Time Options

[Jay Nuno]

Advice please...

Seagate
Buffer to/from Host (max.): 150 Mbytes/s
Average Seek Time: 8.5s

Samsung
Buffer to/from Host (max.): 300Mbytes/s
Average Seek Time: 8.9s

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Bearing in mind they're similar in everything (8MB cache, 7200 rpm, and roughly the same price) other then the specs above, which 160GB SATA drive would you go to for audio work?
I only need it for recording no more then ten tracks at a time (44.1/24) using Pro Tools LE 6.9 (Digi 002) + Mac G5 2.5 Dual.

Basically, what's more important? Buffer handling or Average Seek Time?

If you guys have some other thoughts to share - like noise and reliability - please do it...!

BTW... although I've always heard that Average Seek Time is what matters the most, I would guess the Samsung offers better performance cause the AST difference is very small, and the Buffer capacity of the Samsung is much higher, but would it be as reliable as the Seagate... I never had problems with the Seagates I owned in the past, and never used Samsung...

Thanks in advance...

[lepetitmartien]

Seagate rocks!

The most reliable right now are Seagate, then hitachi/WD.

You can't judge a drive by his cache as the firrmware which handles it a very important and it's difficult to see real advantages in 16 MB vs 8 MB, in fact the drive manufacturers use cache among other things to average a decent result. When they are bad on one point they use another to level things up. That's why Seagate has 8 MB cache and Maxtor uses 16 MB n some models.

I don't have an opinion on Samsung drives, never used/troubleshoot one.

[Jay Nuno]

You can't judge a drive by his cache as the firmware which handles it a very important and it's difficult to see real advantages in 16 MB vs 8 MB

Thanks for your reply...!

What about the "Buffer to/from Host" capability...?
Is it an important factor on audio work...?
Does it make a difference being 150 or 300 Mbytes/s...?