Which is a better drive for vista installation?

[hunk]

Drive 1
Transfer Rate Minimum : 54.7 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 108.2 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 89.3 MB/sec
Access Time : 12.3 ms
Burst Rate : 99.2 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 5.5%

Drive 2
Transfer Rate Minimum : 28.2 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 55.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 46.6 MB/sec
Access Time : 9.0 ms
Burst Rate : 88.3 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 5.5%

[board123]

Clearly the first one.

[hunk]

access time is not as important as transfer rate?

[cwb27]

access time is not as important as transfer rate?

Bud, we're talken 3 ms here... Transfer speeds are more important in this situation.

[board123]

It's a mechanical device, so any measurement they give you on access time should be taken with a grain of salt. Every 7200 RPM drive has more or less the same access time because it's purely a mechanical property of the drive.

Access time is governed by the platter rotational speed, the arm movement speed and to some minimal degree, the drive controller. Platter rotational speed is a fixed 7200 RPM (give or take a few) and arm movement speed is always some constant value because they've been using the same arm mechanism for over a decade.