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Hard Drives... 8mb cache VS. 16mb cache

post #1 of 12
10/12/05 at 7:35pm
Thread Starter 
Do you guys think there are any real world performance differences between the two? if so in which applications?

My 9300 came with a 80gb toshiba which has a 16mb cache, and i see many of the other HDs that dell ships out are 8mb cache, even some of the 7k speed HDs.
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post #2 of 12
10/12/05 at 7:40pm
The difference is that there's 16mb "buffer" memory on the HDD. It pretty much means that the data flow from the platter is stored in a small "buffer" memory chip before the RAM picks it up. Even though it's twice as much buffer memory, it's still very minimal (only 8mb). Benchmarks (tomshardware.com & maximumpc.com) are showing there's hardly a difference SO FAR. The best desktop hard drive as far as performance is Hitachi's Deskstar 7k500 and it only has 8mb.

In other words, I think you're perfectly fine with 8mb
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post #3 of 12
10/12/05 at 7:42pm
I don't think you'd notice a difference. Not in real life usage, unless in real life you just run drive benchmarks all the time. :-)

-Doc
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post #4 of 12
10/12/05 at 7:50pm
Yeah, there were big gains in the initial jumps in size but not so much now...
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post #5 of 12
10/12/05 at 7:51pm
Thread Starter 
cool.. was just wondering..

I guess it can't hurt having 16mb though vs. 8mb... haha.. who knows.. just found it odd when i looked up the part# on my HD and saw it had 16 and most others had 8..
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post #6 of 12
10/12/05 at 7:53pm
Compare warranties too. I'd take implied reliablility over chache size any day.

-Doc
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post #7 of 12
10/12/05 at 8:01pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doc.Caliban
Compare warranties too. I'd take implied reliablility over chache size any day.

-Doc
im pretty sure that the HD that comes with your machine still carries whatever warranty you have through dell, regardless of what manufacturer it is.
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post #8 of 12
10/12/05 at 8:14pm
But it's probably a lot longer than dell's warranty. (3-5 years in most cases)

But good point.

-Doc
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post #9 of 12
10/12/05 at 8:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bowzyr
im pretty sure that the HD that comes with your machine still carries whatever warranty you have through dell, regardless of what manufacturer it is.
This is true, but some folks will be looking to replace the one they got, so checking on the warranty you'll get with the new one is an excellent idea. Some manufacturers will actually offer longer warranties than the OEMs will, even on OEM drives. WD used to do this but I think they stopped.
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post #10 of 12
10/15/05 at 11:46pm
can somone point me to a laptop HD that is 7200 rpm 16mb cache , in my xps gen2 laptop the 5400 rpm 80gig only has 2mb buffer and i need to replace it real soon !

mikron
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post #11 of 12
10/16/05 at 12:00am
NCQ is where the performance on sATA drives is
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post #12 of 12
10/16/05 at 3:41am
you no notice it
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