New hard drive help please

[bobsonroberts]

as the title says, i am in need of a second hard drive. I have a 74gb WD raptor 10k rpm that is very full. I will keep my games on it and move everything else to the other drive. I am looking to spend between 50-75 dollars and have no need for massive amounts of space. i have been led to believe that a 32 mb cache is the way to go, even though i do not know what a cache is heh. I want at least 7200 rpm and would like your suggestions! thanks alot in advance!

 

[geofelt]

Cache is a memory buffer in the hard drive. If data is found in the cache, the drive can avoid the mechanical motion needed to get it off the platter. You would think that more is better, but that is not necessarily the case. The velociraptor is the fastest sata drive out there today, and it has 16 mb cache, not 32. The engineers found that more than 16mb did not help performance. I think that is the case with most drives, and that 32mb is mostly for marketing.

Any of the $50 to $70 drives you see on new egg should be fine.

I like the strategy of a fast OS drive with a second larger storage drive.

 

[ZOldDude]

Segate 7500:11 @ 500GB is a very good (and fast) HD for the money...but put off buying anything untill the end of Jan or late in Feb as all electronic prices are going to drop.