hard drives: 8mb cache and 2mb cache

ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
What is the diff between 8mb and 2mb cache? I would assume the 8 is better but I don't exactly know why.
Does it read faster?
Does it write faster?
Does it find files faster?
Is the speed difference worth an extra $15 when looking at 80gb drives?
 

Maezr

Senior member
Jan 20, 2002
353
0
0
definitely worth an extra 15$.

to be honest, I don't know exactly the entire reason behind it being better, but it's a LOT faster for me. when something's cached, (from my understanding) it's basically stored differently, in a way that's easier/faster to retrieve... I swear it seems to read and write faster during data intensive things, but that could just be my imagination.
 

Goi

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
6,766
7
91
It depends. Some drives with only 2MB cache perform as good if not better than others with 8MB cache. The Hitachi/IBM 180GXP 82.3GB HDD is one good example. It performs at least as well as the recent WD800JB 'E' and 'F' revisions, and a lot better than the older 'C' and 'D' revisions. It also beats my WD1200JB 'C' revision hands down.
 

bobbyjosh

Junior Member
Aug 20, 2003
22
0
0
Cache is RAM for your hard drive. Key files and files used frequently are stored here for faster access. We all know RAM is faster than a Hard Drive. Therefore, the more cach you have... often the better performance you'll see. A 5200RPM HD with 8MBs cache will probably perform something like a 7200RPM hard drive with out cache in most cases, however the 5200RPM will beat the 7200RPM in some cases.
 

lucky9

Senior member
Sep 6, 2003
557
0
0
plus about 10% with the 8

plus about 10% for each 40GB increase in size
 

InlineFive

Diamond Member
Sep 20, 2003
9,599
2
0
Larger cache helps loading game maps because then the maps dont have to have larger bandwidth to compensate (say RAID-0). In some benchmarks someplace (sorry dont remember where) they showed that a 8MB loaded UT2003 maps just as fast as 2MBs in RAID-0.

My two cents...

-Por