Hard drive : 16mb vs 32mb cache - A gimmick or worth it ?

[Lord Athlon]

Title is self explanatory

Does the 16mb cache vs 32mb cache really improve the performence of an hard drive or is it just a marketing gimmick ? I currently have a 250gig 16mb cache Seagate Hard drive and i plan to upgrade to a 500 gig and i plan to go with Western Digital since i found the Seagates a bit loud for my tastes. The thing is , WD don't have a 32mb 500 gig model , only Seagate does.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 3.5IN 500GB SATA2 8.5MS 7200RPM 32MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive 92$ CAN

vs

Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB Hard Drive 3YR MFR Warranty
97$ CAN

I have 140 more gig on the WD for only 5$ more but the Seagate is 32mb. The WD really interest me but if you guys tell me that i would really see an performence gain with the Seagate ill go with it.

For the record , i didn't notice much difference between my old Maxtor 120 gig with 8mb vs my Seagate 250 gig with 16mb but maybe i would really see one with a 32mb HD ?

 

[BoboKatt]

The newer WD 640 is in a class of its own really. New platter design, quiet and at NCIX (I noted you were giving Canadian prices)... they had them for $89. If you check the various reviews, benchmarks, that HD, the newer Samsung F1 1TB and newer Raptors are by far the best and fastest out there.

In regards to the 32MB cache... I have yet to find any advantage of my 750 or 1TB Samsung which both have 32 MB of cache over my WD 640 which has 16. In fact in almost everything, the WD640 is faster hands down. I mainly do video encoding, dealing with massive files, RARing, ripping, and some gaming although mainly older ones.

If you can find it for say 89$, you cannot go wrong on that.

It's quiet and cool as all heck as well.

 

[Lord Athlon]

Originally posted by: BoboKatt
The newer WD 640 is in a class of its own really. New platter design, quiet and at NCIX (I noted you were giving Canadian prices)... they had them for $89. If you check the various reviews, benchmarks, that HD, the newer Samsung F1 1TB and newer Raptors are by far the best and fastest out there.

In regards to the 32MB cache... I have yet to find any advantage of my 750 or 1TB Samsung which both have 32 MB of cache over my WD 640 which has 16. In fact in almost everything, the WD640 is faster hands down. I mainly do video encoding, dealing with massive files, RARing, ripping, and some gaming although mainly older ones.

If you can find it for say 89$, you cannot go wrong on that.

It's quiet and cool as all heck as well.

Those are actually NCIX prices .
And yeah i know that it was 89$ last week but that was a limited offer that ended yesterday i think. It's now 97 $ after a 15 $ instant rebate. Not that i really care about paying 8$ more anyway.

From the sound of your post the WD 640 really does seem like a nice HD. I own a Maxtor 120 , a Seagate 250 and a Western Digital 80 and the WD is my favorite of the 3. I went with a Seagate last time because of the good reviews but i was a bit disappointed. It perform well and all and i had no problem at all but the constant activity that i hear annoys me a bit. I doesn't do that with either the Maxtor or the WD. It runs a bit hotter as well.

 

[BoboKatt]

85$ today for father's day sale. Check the special promotions page. What a deal.

For some reason it only shows in my newsletter I get from them, not if you just go to the site. However it shows 133 left at $85.99. Dang I might get a few more myself.

 

[BBock727]

special promotions page at what website?

 

[solog]

Originally posted by: BoboKatt
The newer WD 640 is in a class of its own really. New platter design, quiet and at NCIX (I noted you were giving Canadian prices)... they had them for $89. If you check the various reviews, benchmarks, that HD, the newer Samsung F1 1TB and newer Raptors are by far the best and fastest out there.

Can you link to some reviews that compare those against the 7200.11 s? Looking for similar drives pretty soon. More interested in 640AAKS and maybe Samsung. Not so much the Velociraptors

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: solog
Can you link to some reviews that compare those against the 7200.11 s?

http://www.extremetech.com/art.../0,2845,2282240,00.asp They aren't astonishingly faster, but they're faster.