need help on picking an hard drive

[Varung]

at the computer fair I was looking for a 7200 60 or 80gig hard drive with 8MB buffer and ATA133

but the exhibitor told me that an ATA133 HDs dont work good with 8mb buffer. is this true?
if so what's best to get an HD with ATA133 and 2MB buffer or an HD with ATA133 and 8MB buffer.

Thanks for any help

[OS-Wiz]

Normal Computer Show BS! Neither 8mb cache nor ATA133 benefit the typical home PC user. There's NO HD on the market that can exploit even ATA100 speeds, even on a burst, cached hit. And you can't exploit ANY SIZE HD cache unless you get a hit in the cache. ALL FIRST TIME reads or writes are to the disk, not cache. Its only on a subsequent read where you can benefit from a cache hit IF the data is still in the cache! And that's why larger HD cache MIGHT be valuable -- because its larger the chance that your second read of the data still being there is greater. However, the typical home PC user rarely exploits ANY cache. The typical home PC user should concentrate on picking a HD with the lowest "avg. seek time" they can find that also uses fluid bearings(they run cooler and quieter). Check out Maxtor, Western Digital(WD), and Seagate HDs at www.newegg.com