16mb vs 32 mb cache for hard drives

[ak8268]

hello
i was wondering what the performance difference is between 16mb and 32mb caches? will it affect gaming load times by much? i am trying to pick out the best hard drive for the cost and seeing if cache is more important.
thanks

 

[4745454b]

Not much. I wouldn't pay extra for a 32mb drive.

 

[Xenturion]

Generally, cache on HDDs is considered fairly unimportant. I remember reading an article a while back about cache and how Western Digital saw no significant performance difference in going from 32MB to 64MB cache, but ended up going to 64 simply due to its competitors also making the transition. Having at least some can increase system smoothness, but, really, having more memory, utilizing SuperFetch (which is on by default in Win7/Vista), or running a RAMDisk or flash drive as a ReadyBoost cache would likely make a vastly significant difference over going from 16MB to 32MB of HDD cache.

 

[ak8268]

thanks for the very speedy replies.
just one more question. so i might go ahead and purchase a hdd with 16 mb cache. i won't be hindering myself right?

 

[4745454b]

I would be more worried about platter density or spindle speed. You can't look at just one metric and think you are getting a good thing. You can't say a CPU with a frequency of 3.0GHz or 2MB L2 cache is good, why would you say 32mb cache on a hdd is good?