[K12OSN] <OT> drives - technical was: Just got approval

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, 2004-03-03 at 13:49, Steve Wright wrote:
> > 
> > That was probably the case a few years ago, but now I think
> > nearly all manufacturers take exactly the same mechanical
> > parts and slap on a different logic board.  There is still
> > the bottleneck with head position and since IDE is cheaper
> > you'll probably buy bigger drives that make this even worse.
> 
> Somehow, I thought the opposite was the case - larger drives means
> greater data density means quicker head positioning (drive has to move
> head zz degrees - actually spans more data on a larger drive.)
> 

That would be true if you kept the same capacity drive and
made it smaller so the head moved a smaller distance. What
really happens is that the drive stays the same size.
Positioning might be marginally faster but it still takes
about the same time edge to edge.  Then, since you have
about 10x the capacity you'll probably double the number
of users who all want the head to be in different places
at the same time.

---
  Les Mikesell
   les at futuresource.com