Cache 16MB or 32MB?

It'll be much less than twice as fast, but if the price isn't too different I'd personally buy the 32MB over the 16MB version.

The performance difference is minimal, go on price.

32MB vs 16mb makes very little difference.

WD 640GB is 16mb and one of the fastest drive. Fast because of it's 2 platters not cause of it's 16mb cache.
The only drive that comes close is the samsung F1 with 32MB.
Also the price per GB is less with the WD.

+1

Alright cool thanks.  
I assume the same goes for 8MB and 16MB?

there is no difference

you'll never notice the difference. I tend to go by warranty and seagate offers 5 year warranty on their hard drives.

It's mainly about the technology being used. You want a perpendicular drive as it's better tech. Makes the drive more reliable.

Most 16 and 32 meg cache drives uses perpendicular heads that's why they are almost the same in performance. I think it's like 10 - 20% better going 32mb version. You'll have to run benchmarks to notice it however.

8 meg drives uses older tech so i would recommend that you shy away from those.

Seagate drives are considered top of the line in the IT/Computer market and they offer a 5 year warranty compared to 3 with most other competitors.

In WD's defense, let's also say that most hard drives that fail will do so in the first week. That's how WD gets away with only 3 years of warranty instead of 5. Besides, if I spend $100 on a 640GB WD disk in July 2008 and it dies in August 2011, right after warranty ends, I won't cry that much. I'll just spend another $100 on a brand new 3TB disk, either Seagate or WD  

good point ^^

Got any evidence to support that? Let's also say that hard drives melt for no reason after 1 year ... ??? that's stupid and unprofessional. Never ever write "lets say" unless you want to get fired from your job or you're a teacher.

Most drives die at random in my 5 years as a Network Administrator and 15 years in the IT field. I've seen some weird stuff but I've rarely seen a drive die in the first week as you say. They typically die between 3-5 years of use. It depends on temperature.

http://www.homeandoffice.hp.com/hho/cache/390-0-0-225-1...

The average life span for today's hard drive is between three and five years. Simple maintenance can keep your hard drive running smoothly well past the time it has become obsolete.

LOL. Listen, I didn't call you names. By "let's say that" I meant "Seagate fanbois conveniently forget to mention that". Sorry about the confusion, I hope the clarification makes you happy.

It doesn't depend on temperature, actually. Google has published statistics proving that, based on their jillions of hard drives. The ones with the higher temps were not the ones that died most often.

So much for the "it depends on temperatures" theory.  

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineFeature/0,296894,sid5_gci1259075,00.html

ok well you're wrong show me the link? I can probably pick it apart to pieces.

Go run a drive in a room that's 105f degrees and see how long it lasts. I know how long it lasts but maybe you should check it out. No fans you can't have any fans that's cheating.

Temperatures effect ALL hardware period no exceptions.

I'm not calling you names I'm calling you unprofessional. I'm saying I know more than you. This is something you need to get use to in life.

I'm pretty sure i can google up something that says a hard drive will melt after 1 year for no reason. How do I know your google source isn't joejackass.com ???

This is not fanboism this is called a fact. Read the HP website. Look it up yourself. Why don't you Google "average hard drive life span".

take out all your fans, put the heat on in your room on a hot day, run your drives for 48 hours. Tell me if they are still working.

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/technolo/drivetemp/drivet...

Heat has a major effect on drive reliability
Disk drives are complex electro-mechanical devices that can suffer performance degradation or failures due to a single event or a combination of events occurring over time. Environmental conditions that affect drive reliability include ambient temperature, cooling air flow rate, voltage, duty cycle, shock/vibration, and relative humidity. Fortunately, it is possible to predict certain types of failures by measuring environmental conditions. One of the worst enemies of hard disk drives is heat. Within a drive, the reliability of both the electronics and the mechanics (such as the spindle motor and actuator bearings) degrades as temperature rises. Running any disk drive at extreme temperatures for long periods of time is detrimental and can eventually lead to permanent data loss.

xxsk8er101xx,

You cite "reference" from a website that's advertising its own technology? And you expect anyone to believe Hitachi's website over Google's data? Is that a joke?

--What do you expect? Hitachi will write an article about its wonderful Drive-TIP, and then prove to everyone why it's so useful and say something like HDD failure is independent of temperature? Please.

Here's more for you to read: http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

Go, please TRY and pick it to pieces, and spew out more nonsense. Or would you rather just quote another HDD manufacturer's website as proof?



Why not just say if you put your hard disks in an oven and heat it to 1000C, they'll definitely fail on you. I could try and explain what the articles are saying, but since you know, you know so much, I'm sure you can figure it out.

Why don't you check out your sources next time before you post, and do some more research. Might save you a lot of embarrassment.

I figured since you loved double and triple posting your information, I would at least do the same for you.



There. Now even someone as dense as you can understand it.

Edit: In case you couldn't get the subtle hints... you don't know more than anybody. This is something you need to get use [sic] to in life.

#1 killer of a Hardrive is movement of the case while the Hardrive is spinning/engaged