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eightoeight · May 18, 2003, 03:55 AM

I was just wondering what benefit a 8MB cache vs. a 2MB cache on a Firewire Hard drive has, will it significantly improve my ability to use that drive as storage?

Thanks in advance.

Powaqqatsi · May 18, 2003, 04:22 AM

It makes the drive faster.

tooki · May 18, 2003, 10:58 AM

...by like 0.5%.

IMHO, the 8MB caches border on a scam. They only aid with small writes to disk, they do little else, yet the drive companies charge a fortune for a dollar's worth of RAM. (Lessee... 512MB SODIMM for $80=$0.16/MB. So 8MB is $1.25.)

Not worth the $, if you ask me.

tooki

eightoeight · May 18, 2003, 11:12 AM

Wow, thanks

I think they can get away with those kinds of scams because people like bigger numbers for computer stuff

and people don't really bother to know what difference it makes.

Thanks again.

tooki · May 18, 2003, 01:09 PM

I mean, the large caches do have a measurable difference (like, in speed tests), but it's very small, and not noticeable in actual use.

If we were talking about SCSI drives, I'd definitely say that caches make a difference, but not for IDE where the drives can't really do any independent thinking anyway.

tooki