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Buffer memory?

demonbrawn

demonbrawn

Joined
May 14, 2006
Messages
996 (0.14/day)
Location
Kentucky
System Specs
System Name Sony Vaio - VGNFW390-CTO
Processor Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T9550 (2.66GHz)
Cooling Stock
Memory 4GB DDR2-SDRAM (DDR2-800, 2GBx2)
Video Card(s) ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3650 with 512MB vRAM (pitiful card)
Storage 320GB SATA Hard Disk Drive [7200 rpm]
Display(s) LCD 16.4" (XBRITE-FullHD™)
Audio Device(s) SupremeFX
Software Windows 7
Hey, I have been researching a little more about hard drives lately, and I noticed there is a specification line that lists the amount of buffer memory. Can someone tell me more about what this means and what its use is and is the different between 8 and 16MB buffer memory substantial?
 
The buffer memory on the harddrive is like the page file to the system ram.

so lets say your going to transfer a 8MB file and you have 16MB buffer ram on harddrive the move will transfer at the rate the ram allows (then the buffer ram will move it to the harddrive.
 
Like DRDNA said, it's a cache to hold data going to the hard drive.
The benefit of a larger buffer depends on what is sent to the drive, but a good rule of thumb is "the more the merrier".
 
Thanks guys. That makes sense.
 
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