WD800BB with 2mb cache vs. WD800JB with 8mb cache

[BestJinjo]

I am planning to sell the computer I previously built, the only question is whether i should keep my WD800BB 2mb hard drive or sell my computer with it and buy a new computer system for the same price I sold (of course with faster performance 🙂) and it turns out i have to pay $25 extra then for what i sell my system to get the new WD800JB with 8mb cache.

Do you guys think 8mb is worth extra $25?? Will i notice the difference in performance (loading games, windows xp, etc.)?

 

[NokiaDude]

2mb v.s. 8mb is like night and day, there's MAJOR difference in performance. I recently bought a WD800JB and it's awesome. It performs on par of a 10k rpm drive with 2mb cache. $25 to goto an 8mb cache is most definitely worth it.

 

[chocoruacal]

Its worth it for the 3 year warranty. You won't "feel" any speed increase going to an 8mb cache drive. I have 2mb and 8mb cache 120 gig WD and Maxtors, and I can't tell the difference between any of them 🙂

 

[DaveSimmons]

storagereview.com -or- use search on "2MB" for all the other 2MB-vs-8MB threads.

 

[Macro2]

I can't tell the difference between 2 and 8. I have both drives.

 

[Intelman07]

I can tell a major difference in writting on the disk. There is slight performance increase in loading too.

 

[Ketchup]

I bought a Western Digital with the 2MB cache, and returned it. I couldn't get over how slow that thing was! I would definately go for the 8 MB cache version, but why WD? I have seen a lot of people in these forums with dead Special Edition drives (the click of death the IBM 75 GXP's made so popular.) Get a Maxtor DiamondMAX Plus 9 with 8 MB cache. This is by far the fastest single hard drive I have ever owned, and I can't tell a difference between it and my two IBM's I had in RAID0.

 

[EeyoreX]

2mb v.s. 8mb is like night and day, there's MAJOR difference in performance

I think that is overstating things, I have both and while there is a slight difference, I'd hardly call it night and day. Maybe late evening and dusk. Of course, this also depends on how you are measureing the difference. In everyday, normal use, the difference is so slight as to be almost unnoticable, unless you are looking for it.

\Dan