Hard drive cache: 8MB vs 16MB vs 32MB

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Soldato
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20 Apr 2004
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Just a quick question, and sorry if it's been asked before recently.

I'm quickly running out of space on my current array (running 2 x 120GB 7200 rpm 8MB cache in RAID 0) so thought I'd take advantage of the VAT cut to upgrade to a pair of larger drives.

Can anyone tell me if there is any 'real world' difference between 8MB, 16MB or 32MB cache, or is it mostly about benchmarks?

At the moment I'm leaning towards going for the middle option, 16MB, but I'd be grateful for advice.

Thanks :)
 
There is a difference, but as with most of these things you may not notice in the real world.

I personally wouldn't buy an 8Mb drive as it will be old technoligy. Drives with 16 or 32Mb cache represent the current generation so stick with them.
 
(All other things being equal) Apparently going from an 8MB cache to 16MB does give a noticeable performance increase, but going from a 16MB to 32MB cache really doesn't seem to increase the performance by much, if at all...
 
was also thinking this, i have an older raptor 74gb with 8mb cache, was thinking going for WD RE3 250gb, would this be any better than the raptor as its got 16mb as appose to the raptors 8mb
 
It's the law of diminishing returns, as has been said 8mb to 16mb should be noticeable but 16mb to 32mb much less so. If there is a difference then you'll probably only see it in benchmarks normally, the other advances to drive technology are much more likely to make a difference to your uses than the cache.
 
The older drivers are so slow. Installed windows on a 80Gig Sata drive a month back. After a week i had to re-install windows again but this time round on a 32meg cache drive. Windows has been working so much better since.
 
The 32MB tend to come with 5 year warranty, rather than 3, and they do tend to be slightly faster on access times etc, they tend to be the more enterprise aligned than the 16MB. But the cache in itself on benchmarks comes out as worth little.
 
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