Importance of hdd cache?

Slightly better, yes, and the ones with 32 MB caches just a little better again. The differences are in the time to locate a file and feed its data to you. If you don't need speed you probably can tolerate the difference easily. A larger cache is really a help at working with access to long sequential files, but less help when your application has to jump all over the disk looking for new small files. Gamers love big caches, fast HDD rotational speeds, RAID0 arrays - anything that gives a tiny margin of improved performance. Many everyday users find these small improvements hard to notice.

Get the 16Mb. The transfer and access times of modern 7200rpm drives render any amount beyond 16Mb as ineffectual, both in theory and in actual use. For a 160Gb drive even the 8Mb would be sufficient. "Real" caching no longer occurs at the drive level on desktop PCs, it is done by the OS with unused ram (much larger and quicker than any HD cache). It would be more appropriate to refer to the memory on the drive as a buffer since its primary function is to hold the data until the heads are in position to write and 16Mb can easily store it for the now very short time required. Reads, on a SataII connection, can transfer almost as fast as it can be pulled off the platter, the buffer will rarely go beyond 2 or 3 io requests deep before dumping data into the dma channel. As stated before, it is far more important to defrag.

more than buffer size you want a drive with a high data density

since drives can only read one side of one platter at a time.. a drive with 500GB/platter is alot faster than one with 250/GB/platter.

something like a seagate 7200.12 500GB can be had for about 50$ if you watch for a sale.

its a 1 platter drive with 16MB buffer

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822148469


49.99 + free ship from newegg for a 320GB, 59.99 for a 500GB

dont be scared of ignorant reviews only read the ones from people who dont seem like idiots.


and for the record the 7200.12 series have none of the firmware problems of the 7200.11 series.