Till last year, most drives would come with 8 MB buffer and a select few would boast of 16 MB. Seagate's newer drives-7200.11 (7200.9 and 7200.10 are older generation), have an integrat¬ed 32 MB buffer, and it seems to benefit on the performance front-even if slightly.

Hitachi's 1 TB also has 32 MB, but a 16 MB version is also available. Most Western Digital drives have 16 MB, except for the AV drive, which comes with 8 MB-still reasonable for the daily grind.

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Seagate's 80 and 160 GB drives were the only drives with 2 MB buffers, and we also see it affecting their performance, espe- I cially, when you compare the single-platter drives with their 250 GB counterparts. 7200 RPM is still the speed of choice for most hard drive manufacturers¬the Raptor was the only drive whirling at crazy 10,000 RPM. The Green Power drives from Western Oigital, dynamically adjust the rotational speed, but we understand the speed varies between 5400 to 7200 RPM.