Hard disks - Does cache size make a noticable difference?

[cdpuk]

Basically I'm looking at buying a new HD, and I noticed the same model for £13 extra had a 16MB cache instead of 8MB.

Is it really worth going for the extra cache or not?

Thanks
-Chris

[arthurleung]

The difference is pretty small unless you're doing very heavy multi-tasking which the extra cache would help slightly.

Given 8MB and 16MB ram chip's price difference is so minimal (<50p) they make a 16MB model just for more profit.

2->8M have relatively big performance improvement but 8->16 not really.

I would recommend you to get the 8M one (or even spend the extra &#163;13 on slightly bigger space (like 250->320)

[cdpuk]

Well, I was going to go for 400GB anyway

I think I'll just get the 8MB one then. I did just find a chart showing a large difference between 512k - 1M - 2M but only a very small difference between 2M - 4M - 8M - 16M.

Thanks anyway.

By the way - SATA300 disks are backwards compatible with SATA150 controllers aren't they?

-Chris

[arthurleung]

SATA300 Disks are backward copatible with SATA150.

[cdpuk]

Okay, thought I better check - thanks.

-Chris

[Sinizter]

You might need to set a jumper on the hard drive to make sure it works with some of the older motherboards.

[cdpuk]

Yeah just seen that too. I was going to buy a Samsung disk. Just checked their website - they seem to include them on all their SATA300 drives.

-Chris

[prehensile]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/sto...ra-720010.html

also depends on the make, apparently Seagate has the best physics and Maxtor has the best cache algorithms

[cdpuk]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/sto...ra-720010.html

also depends on the make, apparently Seagate has the best physics and Maxtor has the best cache algorithms

I never realised there was such a difference between disks to be honest. I better go have a proper read of that article.

-Chris

[Butcher]

www.storagereview.com has good comparisons of almost any drives you want to look at.

[oralpain]

There can be massive differences between harddrives of similar specifications.

I have two 40G deskstars. Both are 7,200rpm, both have 2M cache, both are ATA100. One is a T7K250, one is a 60GXP. The former/newer drive is almost twice as fast as the older drive.

Platter density, cache algorithms, physics, and so on can be very important.

[8bit]

Just to chuck my 2p's worth in...

Worth considering IMHO are the Samsung SpinPoint series drives. I have P120, it's a 250GB model, SATA300, 8MB cache. It's almost completely silent (worth more than you might think if you've never used a really quiet HDD) and it's almost as fast as my Raptor 74GB. Benchmark used - 8bit's "seat-of-the-pants-mark"

I imagine the 16MB cache models will be at least as good and they're pretty reasonably priced. Samsungs for me from now on.