What is cache on an hdd?

[zskot75]

juz wondering cuz im picking out an hdd for my build. has to be sata 6gb and 320GB max nothing more 140GB is minimum i'll go

 

[SchizTech]

The cache is just a bit of memory on the HDD controller that sits "between" the system and the disk. It serves to smooth things out so that the system doesn't need to wait for the drive so much.

In fact, the manufacturers have concluded that very large caches don't make much difference above 16 MB.

 

[zskot75]

ok thanks