all the hype over 8mb cach on HD's

[tcc2f6]

I'm looking at HD's, and I just got the 8mb cach (yeah, i bought into the hype) 120gig seagate to go with my WD SE (8mb as well) 80 gig.

(i got the 120 because my 60 gig ibm deathstar crashed).

So I guess here is why I'm curious over the hype. With my current set up I have my OS(XP) on the 80 gig, and all my music/dv/photos on the 120. I have always kept the OS and OS only on the smaller HD. So right now I have a big ass HD of 120 that is perfect for my media. But then an 80 gig for JUST an OS, which seems just a tad more than is really needed.

So I was thinking...sell the 80 gig somewhere (any advice on this would be nice too) and just get a 40 gig seagate or something (best buy has a $30 and $15 MIR, and i'd trade a really loud HD for a lot quiter one.) However, looking through the HD's I noticed it was 2mb cach....so. considering my current setup, would I lose much by doing this and would you guys advise it? (I know WD is faster than seagate, but i'm anal with noise, not speed, nor am i a gamer or 3d modeler).

thanks for any responses in advance.
tyler

 

[SexyK]

I know WD is faster than seagate, but i'm anal with noise, not speed, nor am i a gamer or 3d modeler

If you're not going to be doing really disk intensive work (like video editing or gaming to a lesser degree), you'll never notice the difference between an 8mb and 2mb version of the drives. The Seagates are dead quiet and perform fine for what you're working on. I'd go for it if you want the smaller drive.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: SexyK
If you're not going to be doing really disk intensive work (like video editing or gaming to a lesser degree), you'll never notice the difference between an 8mb and 2mb version of the drives.

That's a bit of an oversimplification. The reason big buffer drives perform well for most uses is that they take advantage of data locality - i.e. if you want files "A" and "B", there's a good chance that A and B are close together on the drive under most scenarios. Big buffers take advantage of this by grabbing more nearby data, decreasing the chance that the drive will need to seek for the next part. This is clearly a simplification of what the drive's firmware is doing, but it suffices for the general picture.

So when are 8MB drives useful? When you're working with files that are small and spread out, but not completely random. That pretty much describes typical OS and desktop program usage, where related files are generally written to folders that occupy the same portion of the disk. It doesn't apply to really big database use, where seeks are randomized across the disk with little data locality, or to working with huge files, e.g. video editing, where the data is in large sequential chunks and little seeking is required.

In your case, you want an OS/program drive. There's lots of data locality there, hence the 8MB drive would have a significant advantage. If the 80GB is too big, there's a 40GB version of the WD. Or, partition the drive, and use some for backup ghost images or similar.

 

[Viper96720]

Partion the 80 gig drive?

 

[Nanuk]

Or you could just get the 40GB and make that you OS while keeping your 80GB for Program Files and your 120Gb for DATA.

That's what I do. Makes it easier to do a reinstall.


Just remember to move you My Documents to the Data drive. And Defrag regularly, I myself use Vopt. Pretty good. Went through a ton of defrag utils before I reached Vopt though. (Disk keeper, Norton, and O&O)

 

[zephyrprime]

Compared to it's 2MB sibling, the WD 120GB 8MB is 22.5% faster at the storagereview office drivemark and 20% faster at the storagereview gaming drivemark.

I know you have the 80GB model but storagereview didn't have a review for the 80GB 2MB cache model. I think the figures I've dug up are pretty representative of the difference between 8MB cache and 2MB cache models in any event. The 8mb cache thing is no hype. When you consider the price premium is only 10% but the performance boost is 20%, 8mb cache is well worth it.

The price difference between 40GB and 80GB drives is small because the 80GB is becoming the new platter size standard. 80GB is going to be the smallest platter that is made in the near future.

Don't get the diamond max 8 because its performance sucks.

 

[RobCur]

I dont have any hd with 8mb cache yet, I guess it would help alot when you do stuff intensively with the hd. The more cache, the better what can I say? it's like ram.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

for 80GB, 2M cache and 8M cache, the price difference is almost nothing.

 

[SexyK]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle

Originally posted by: SexyK
If you're not going to be doing really disk intensive work (like video editing or gaming to a lesser degree), you'll never notice the difference between an 8mb and 2mb version of the drives.

That's a bit of an oversimplification. The reason big buffer drives perform well for most uses is that they take advantage of data locality - i.e. if you want files "A" and "B", there's a good chance that A and B are close together on the drive under most scenarios. Big buffers take advantage of this by grabbing more nearby data, decreasing the chance that the drive will need to seek for the next part. This is clearly a simplification of what the drive's firmware is doing, but it suffices for the general picture.

So when are 8MB drives useful? When you're working with files that are small and spread out, but not completely random. That pretty much describes typical OS and desktop program usage, where related files are generally written to folders that occupy the same portion of the disk. It doesn't apply to really big database use, where seeks are randomized across the disk with little data locality, or to working with huge files, e.g. video editing, where the data is in large sequential chunks and little seeking is required.

In your case, you want an OS/program drive. There's lots of data locality there, hence the 8MB drive would have a significant advantage. If the 80GB is too big, there's a 40GB version of the WD. Or, partition the drive, and use some for backup ghost images or similar.

That's all obviously true, but, first of all, this will be his OS only drive, 99% of which will stay in memory in the first place. Also, when youre running Word and Outlook, with any modern drive a 20% faster load time is basically undetectable by you or me, in fact a challenge you to tell the difference between the two drives in the same system (too bad we can't have a test!) I stand by my statement that for his uses, the difference between the drives will be nominal.

 

[Ardan]

Originally posted by: SexyK

Originally posted by: cleverhandle

Originally posted by: SexyK
If you're not going to be doing really disk intensive work (like video editing or gaming to a lesser degree), you'll never notice the difference between an 8mb and 2mb version of the drives.

That's a bit of an oversimplification. The reason big buffer drives perform well for most uses is that they take advantage of data locality - i.e. if you want files "A" and "B", there's a good chance that A and B are close together on the drive under most scenarios. Big buffers take advantage of this by grabbing more nearby data, decreasing the chance that the drive will need to seek for the next part. This is clearly a simplification of what the drive's firmware is doing, but it suffices for the general picture.

So when are 8MB drives useful? When you're working with files that are small and spread out, but not completely random. That pretty much describes typical OS and desktop program usage, where related files are generally written to folders that occupy the same portion of the disk. It doesn't apply to really big database use, where seeks are randomized across the disk with little data locality, or to working with huge files, e.g. video editing, where the data is in large sequential chunks and little seeking is required.

In your case, you want an OS/program drive. There's lots of data locality there, hence the 8MB drive would have a significant advantage. If the 80GB is too big, there's a 40GB version of the WD. Or, partition the drive, and use some for backup ghost images or similar.

That's all obviously true, but, first of all, this will be his OS only drive, 99% of which will stay in memory in the first place. Also, when youre running Word and Outlook, with any modern drive a 20% faster load time is basically undetectable by you or me, in fact a challenge you to tell the difference between the two drives in the same system (too bad we can't have a test!) I stand by my statement that for his uses, the difference between the drives will be nominal.

I agree with you. I have a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 and I don't notice the difference. In my system configurations you can see I have one PC with this drive (mine) and the other PC (mostly used by my dad) has an 80Gb Western Digital SE drive. They are both very solid drives, and fast. The Seagate is silent, but thats not why I bought it. I bought it on the assumption that the performance difference was undetectable and I wasn't about to sacrifice stability for speed. Upon buying it, I was amazed to find that this 2meg cache Seagate performed up to par with the WD SE drive. I'm not referring to any benchmarks...I am referring to everyday things. It loads Windows just as fast (actually, 2 seconds faster but who cares?), as well as MS Office applications. If I time them, the WD hard drive loads games faster, like Battlefield:1942 but the difference, if I recall, is really only 2 or 3 seconds. I agree with you...unless you are specifically looking for it, you really won't notice.

 

[amdskip]

I just purchased a 120gb Maxtor 8mb hard drive, hopefully it helps me out.

 

[ScissorClaw]

So Ardan, basically your saying that both of the systems are EXACTLY the same except for the two drives?

 

[SexyK]

Originally posted by: amdskip
I just purchased a 120gb Maxtor 8mb hard drive, hopefully it helps me out.

Dont get me wrong, I'm not saying there's no value to the 8MB disks, I'll be putting them in my next system, no doubt. But I demand the tip top performance out of my system and I stress it pretty heavily. All I'm saying is, in this situation, I don't think it'l be a perceptable difference.