Thread: HD: 16mb cache or 8mb & +2yr warranty

Originally Posted by d_sellers1

I was looking at 100GB 2.5" harddrives earlier tonight and two caught my eye.
A Seagate that has 8mb of cache & a 5 year warranty and
a Toshiba that has 16mb of cache & a 3 year warranty.
(Both are ATA-6 & 12ms)

The price difference between the two is only nine bucks so cost (in this case) doesn't count. I'm curious which would be perferred. Personally, I like the fact that the Seagate has a 5 year warranty but I'm wondering if I'll even notice any additional performance gain from a drive with an additional 8mb of cache.

From a search, I read that the additional cache will allow the drive to spin slower which will eat less power but since I'm planning on going with the OPUS150 I doubt there will a significant amount of power saved.

Opinions....

Derek

I have NEVER used a hard drive for 5 years.. I think 3 was the longest before I upgraded.. and I think that the 16mb buffer is a definite advantage

Originally Posted by strohj

I have NEVER used a hard drive for 5 years.. I think 3 was the longest before I upgraded.

Good point. I've had four or five harddrive die or the past couple years and they all were under 3 years of use. However, I still have an 80GB harddrive that came with my first computer that I bought back in 1999. It's still running strong, however, its not in a computer anymore. It's running in a modded Xbox. If it dies, oh well. It's served its purpose and when it dies I'll put something else in it. In fact, I still have a couple 2GB and 8GB harddrives laying around that pretty much serve no purpose except for (maybe) being a paperweight.

Derek