How much faster are the drives with 8mb cache compared to 2mb?

[JohnPaul]

Last week I bought one of the 8mb maxtors, and today I decided to get another drive, but since the only one that really had a good deal at local stores was the maxtor 100gb + 20gb free for $79 after rebates and instant savings. What I want to know is should I just take it back and get a drive with 8mb cache, or is the difference even noticable? I would just assume keep this thing packaged if I am going to take it back. I just want to know what you guys thing in regards to this.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Try search on "2MB" and "8MB" for a bunch of earlier threads on this.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Try search on "2MB" and "8MB" for a bunch of earlier threads on this.

Bah... you beat me to it!

Maybe we should start the
R
E
P
O
S
T

thing in General Hardware....

 

[DaveSimmons]

Bah... you beat me to it!

Maybe we should start the
R
E
P
..

But I prefer to think of myself as a Search Nazi rather than a Repost Nazi

 

[JohnPaul]

You wasted your 5000th post to tell me to use the search function?

 

[JohnPaul]

Anyhow, I pretty much assumed as much. I don't know what I was thinking when I bought this. I knew I wouldn't be satisfied with anything but the best, at least as far as IDE drives go. I talked myself into thinking the size>price ratio made up for it's lack of a large cache. Ah, it's going back in the morning.

Another question, are those 160gig drives at compusa the exact same thing as the Maxtor 160gig, and if so, do they come with the exact same Maxtor warrenty?

 

[The Sauce]

Interesting...lot's of posts but zero useful information. Strong work nazis.

 

[AnImuS]

Originally posted by: Snatchface
Interesting...lot's of posts but zero useful information. Strong work nazis.

ouch

try www.storagereview.com they have a massive amount of scores with all the major HD. i myself have a 8MB and its worth it. Its only a couple bucks more.

 

[JohnPaul]

Yea, I already have one 80gig Maxtor 8mb cache drive, but I can't tell if the difference I see is due to the fact that the only other drive on my system is a ata66 7200rpm drive. I don't even know what the cache on that one is. It's a diamondmax 40 if that tells you anything. I'm just too lazy to go to Maxtor's site and look at the specs. I will say this,between the two drives currently on my system, I can see a very noticable difference between the 8mb and the ?mb cache, if that is what it is attributable to. If anyone can answer my question about the two 160gig drives, i'd appreciate it, as I want to pick one up tomorrow. The generic ones are on sale at compusa, which is my reason for bringing this whole thing up..

BTW, what are you guys 12 or 13? Do you need to up your postcount that badly that you need to post "repost" to every thread. What hasn't been talked about on this forum? Should we all just look through old threads instead of posting new? Would that make you happy. Grow up, i'll post when and where I want. I KNOW ALL ABOUT THE SEARCH FEATURE. Don't be condescending to me, as i'm not the one who has so much time on their hands that they're able to maintain a post count of 5k, not that it's a bad thing to have a high post count, just that if the only way you can get that post count is by posting "search feature" "REPOST" every five minutes, then it becomes an issue.

Thanks for the help by the way

 

[NokiaDude]

Pssst . . . It's ALL about the network transfers. I'm using an WD 7200rpm 80gb SE HDD and when I transfer stuff like large (5gb) folders I can barely tell, there almost no performance hit. And I got about 8-10mb a sec transfer speed. I can watch anime without a hiccups. My old WD 5400rpm 40gb HDD with a regular 2mb cache would burn up tryin to serve me and the transfer. And I got about 3-4mb a sec transfer speed.

 

[chocoruacal]

Dear God,

Please lay waste to all the 2mb versus 8mb drive threads.

Thank you,
Concerned Citizen

Seriously...the difference is negligeable. The biggest benefit I see in the 8mb drives, is that they come with a 3 year warranty as opposed to 1, at least with WD they do. I have several 8mb and 2mb Maxtor and WD drives. Contrary to popular fanboy forum opinions, I can't tell any difference between the Maxtor and WD drives. I also can't feel any difference between the 2mb and 8mb models. I'm sure if I was blessed with a dull life, and had the time to benchmark all of them, I'd realize a staggering 1% difference somewhere...but I don't In real life however, between gaming, video capture, encoding, blah blah...I'd fail a blind taste test miserably. Without opening up the case, I couldn't tell you which is which.

So don't worry about it....buy whatever is cheapest/has the warranty you are comfortable with.

 

[bocamojo]

When comparing the 8MB cache with the 2MB cache drives, only try to realize the truth.... there is no spoon...

Seriously, try to think of it in terms of "feel" versus terms of "performance difference". My WD (80GB) 8MB cache drive "feels" faster, and more responsive than my old 2MB cache (40GB) IBM 60GXP 7200RPM drive... And that's all I have to say about that...

 

[Dulanic]

What are you using it for? If your using it purely as a storage drive.... no apps installed on it etc... who cares. I plan on buying a 200GB or so and I wont care if its 2MB or 8MB... it wont have any apps on it installed etc.... just lots of MP3s and LOTS of downloaded stuff.... so performance wont much matter.

 

[dragfree]

I notice the speed difference when editing large files in photoshop. Don't notice the difference in Word, or web surfing. Games? Heck, I don't know--you'd have to ask one of my kids.

As for the 160GB Maxtors--there are three different varieties out there (platters of 60GB, 68GB, & 80GB). They all perform well (especially compared to those old 500MB 5400rpm drives of yesteryear), but there are differences among them. See storage review's report on them.