quick comparison query

[PC Muppet]

Hi, just a newbie-quickie.

On the OC site there is a seagate barracuda hard drive that is 500GB and has a 32MB cache.

The western digital HD is 640GB (which is obviously better) yet it is only 16MB cache but is £7 dearer.

Questions are-
1) What is 'cache' & does it matter? -specifically the difference between the two?

2) So what one should I be going for then?

Cheers in advance.

 

[semi-pro waster]

1) Cache is a small section of faster memory, essentially like Ram but dedicated to the hard drive so it can store information temporarily (e.g. pre-fetching what you are likely to use next) and supply it faster since the cache is qucker than the mechanical hard drive. The difference between 16mb and 32mb isn't all that huge, if you were talking about 2mb to 8mb or even 8mb to 16mb then I'd suggest going with the drive that has the larger cache provided both offered enough space.

2) Here though I'd probably go with the Western Digital if you need the extra space as I don't think you'll see any negatives in speed terms due to the cache.

 

[AbsenceJam]

The WD is bigger, quieter and a lot faster, well worth the £7