Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (
More info?)
No, don't upgrade *just* to get the larger cache, that's pointless. It will
result in a *very* minor improvement to go from 2mb to 8mb, virtually
imperceptible unless using benchmarking tools like SiSoftware Sandra. In
real world usage, it's virtually meaningless.
Windows provides its own file cache management! So in reality, the HD cache
is hit so little, it doesn't even matter. The Windows cache is much bigger,
more flexible, and ultimately faster. That's why benchmarking tools
typically turn OFF the Windows file cache before running, it would otherwise
distort the results! For all intents and purposes, the HD cache is useless,
and is more marketing hype than anything else, just one more means to
distinguish their product from all the others, and get you to open your
wallet one more time. Even if the HD has NO cache, you'd never notice it in
real usage.
The only thing that would benefit is something like MS-DOS, where there is
no file cache management.
HTH
Jim
"Ken" <waves23@bigblue.net.au> wrote in message
news:c5ih19$8pn$1@bigblue.net.au...
> Hi
> Is there going to be great differences in performance between a drive with
> 2mb cache compared to a drive with 8mb and is it worth the upgrade.
>
>
>