How much difference does 8MB cache make vs. 2MB?

[The Pentium Guy]

I'm referring to harddrives.

 

[Rock Hydra]

I would say that it would be more efficient to cache the larger files so that say a folder of a bunch of mp3s could be held in the cache waiting to be sent across the interface instead of the head still accessing that file on the platter. Something like that.

 

[daveshel]

Big difference.

 

[Jiggz]

15% to 25% depending depending on what programs you use it for. Difference in performance is more prominent when using database programs.

 

[Arcanedeath]

totaly depends on the apps, the larger cache helps hide 7200rpm hdds poor seek times so it makes your system feel snappier, but for STR intensive apps it make pretty much no difference at all, so if you doing raid 0 or some forms of AV editing where seeks don't really matter and STR is king it won't make that much off a diff. However in everyday desktop usage there is quite a noticible difference and I would always suggest the 8mb buffer drives of the 2mb ones esp. since the price difference is so small.

 

[imported_waltberg5]

thx, this helped me out too. can some1 tell me what STR stands for. i bet it'll be ultra obvious when some1 tells me....

 

[Sunner]

Sustained Transfer Rates.
And I'd go with an 8 meg drive simply because most manufacturers offer 3 year warranties on their 8meg versions vs 1 year on the 2 meg versions.
Of course, Seagate offers 5 years on both, so that's nice

 

[imported_waltberg5]

I KNEW IT!!!!!!!

thx a bunch man. that the fastest reply ive ever experienced here

/me cries *its so touching*

 

[Visual]

isnt it Sequential Transfer Rate?

 

[furballi]

It would be difficult for you to notice the improvement with normal PC use. There is no performance boost if you're working with large file, say over 50MB size.

 

[Leros]

I was curious too. So I took two identical drives (except a 2mb vs 8mb cache) and compared them as my boot drive. I didnt run any benchmarks, but I did notice a big difference between the two.

 

[gar3555]

about 6 mb....hehe

 

[furballi]

Need to clone the drives if you want an accurate test. There should NOT be a big improvement between the two drives if we're ONLY bumping up the cache from 2MB to 8MB. The older drive may be slower due to older read/write technology incorporated in the drive. This has NOTHING to do with cache level.

The AVERAGE real-world read speed for most 7200 rpm drives is around 45MB/sec. Therefore, the theoretical gain for a 8MB cache drive is 13%. That's only a saving of 0.13 sec if you're reading a 45MB file. When working with larger file, the speed boost of the larger cache disappears.