[Chimpmaster]

Hi guys,

I have an imac and use it for digital video editing in imovie and photo editing in photoshop elements 2.

I am finding that my 40GB hd fills up very quickly, especially in imovie, and I need some more disk space to work in.

I have my eyes on a couple of external firewire hard drives, 120GB capacity. They are really well priced now a days, and not considerably more than an internal drive.

My question is on disk cache size. How much impact does this have on performance? The drive I am looking at comes in 2MB and 8MB varieties, and the price differential is enough to make me ask this question.

Does anyone know what kind of performance increase I would expect with 8MB over 2MB? If its small (like 5%) I wouldnt bother, but if its significant, then I might go for the bigger cache size.

FYI my machine's specs are in my signature. If anyone else has any tips on how I can increase the performance of my mac for imovie exporting id appreciate it (other than the obvious major upgrade). Sometimes exports from raw quicktime to video cd (eg .mov to .mpeg) are taking me 6-8 hrs for 1 hr of high quality video, sometimes even longer.

[zigzag]

Chimp, since no one else has responded, I'll chime in and say that I recently read an article saying that it makes no practical difference and has essentially become a marketing tactic. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I read it, nor can I vouch for the article's accuracy. If I come up with a link, I'll post it. If anyone has information to the contrary, I would welcome it.

[Krusty]

I'll just add to zigzag's post. The maximum real throughput on firewire is about 34-35MB/sec (despite its nominal 400Mbit/50MB per second stated maximum). Even if the 8mb cache were a little faster, BOTH are likely to be faster than FW can transfer anyway .. I wouldn't worry about it.

[SSharon]

I use 2 internal HD that have 2mb cache and 2 HD's that are external firewire and have 8mb cache and really can't tell a speed difference between any of the drives. My only advice for you is to build the drive yourself since its much cheaper and this way you can buy a seagate HD with a 5 year warranty. Also, if prices are similar in the US as by you I would even consider larger than 120gb. So, buy a huge drive, buy a cheap case, save money, don't worry about speed, and enjoy.

[Chimpmaster]

Thanks guys, much appreciated. 2MB it is

This is the one I have my eyes on.

http://www.epowermac.com.au/product.asp?P_ID=132

The 120GB model for $245 AUS. Thats about $200 US, maybe $190 US.

[Madrag]

I recommend a bigger HD (160GB) you'll see that the extra 40GB are worth every $$
(I bought a 160GB FW Lacie D2 drive and it is rock solid!)