16mb vs 32mb cache for boot drive?

K

kidstechno

Gawd
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Dec 14, 2005
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I'm looking for a new boot drive, as I had to replace some components in my system, might as well go for some more as my 36gb WD 10krpm drive from almost a decade ago is getting loud and finicky (that and holy Windows 7 eats up 36gb like it's nothing, along with updates and drivers).

I was looking at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136795
vs.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148701

I know a $20 price difference isn't a huge deal, but when on a budget $20 can buy me a nice meal :D

So they're both the same capacity, but only difference is 32mb cache vs. 16mb of cache (and 2 extra years warranty, but we'll exclude that).

Really that big of a deal for $20?

(FYI, I'm using a 320GB Seagate for games/programs and a 600GB external for backups/extra/whatever).
 
16mb vs 32mb is placebo at best when talking about spinning disks, at least its not a difference you'd notice in usage or see on benchmarks, if you care about performance then save up for an SSD. If you don't want an SSD then go for whatever has the longest warranty.
 
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The Seagate and Western Digital have nearly identical performance values, the Seagate obviously has the better value per GB.
 
BigXor said:
The Seagate and Western Digital have nearly identical performance values, the Seagate obviously has the better value per GB.
Click to expand...

Because their desktop-class drives are cheap and break often.

WD has much higher-quality desktop-class drives, even if they cost a bit more.

As for cache, it will help if a lot of multi-tasking is happening.

The bigger the cache, the more apps that can run from the disk with minimized disk-thrashing.

Getting the 32MB HDD will definitely help, but the more important factors would be the RPMs, the amount of disk platters (fewer is better), and the disk platter-density.
 
Yes, get the cheaper drive, and have it fail within a year. Best of luck! :rolleyes:
 
Get a WD drive.

I like the 5yr warranty on the blacks personally, and my data is worth the small extra fee :)
 
Not worth spending 50% more. WD is not magically better unlike what others may want you to think. The extra fee won't save your data as a longer warranty doesn't mean you get better reliability.
 
Go with the Seagate. Out of all the drives I've owned, I've had more WD drives fail and I've yet to have a Seagate fail.

I've owned:

5 Seagate (0 failures)
6 Samsung (1 failure)
5 WD (2 failures)
 
I know it's not specifically on topic, but I can't overstate how much of an improvement to daily computing life an SSD boot drive is. If you can make it work, go for it IMO. Intel is my fave. I think I saw a well priced 160GB X25-M brand new in the F/S forum here. 40GB Intels can be had from newegg for ~$100 it seems.
 
Most of the drives I have ever owned are WD. There seems to be a general hate of Seagate on the interwebz. I think it is because of the bad batch of 1TB drives last year. I don't think they are a bad company at all.
 
Dark12 said:
Most of the drives I have ever owned are WD. There seems to be a general hate of Seagate on the interwebz. I think it is because of the bad batch of 1TB drives last year. I don't think they are a bad company at all.
Click to expand...

The company is great, and their laptop/GoFlex drives as well as their nearline and enterprise-class drives are awesome.

Seagate's desktop-class drives are what have been a consistent problem for about the last 11 years or so.

WD has far superior desktop-class drives, at least in terms of reliability.

Every time a person has brought a system to me with a dead drive, it's been a Seagate Barracuda.

For enterprise-class drives, their Constellation and Cheetah's are top notch and I would rarely recommend any other drive.

For a desktop however, WD, or even Hitachi or Samsung. ;)
 
Your small sample size can't be used as a reference. Even with the couple hundred drives I have at home, I don't consider it to be sufficient. What I have learned though is that drives fail and that brand preferences for the most part are silly. Good/bad experiences can all be attributed to one thing...luck.
 
Blue Fox said:
Your small sample size can't be used as a reference. Even with the couple hundred drives I have at home, I don't consider it to be sufficient. What I have learned though is that drives fail and that brand preferences for the most part are silly. Good/bad experiences can all be attributed to one thing...luck.
Click to expand...

I've seen hundreds of bad Seagate Barracuda's now.
I've had 1 WD fail, 3 Hitachi's (old models that don't count), and never had a Samsung go out.

I think my sample size is enough to convince me to stay away from their desktop-class drives.

I really like Seagate as a company and I think their warranties are great.

Even their desktop-class drives have high performance. The only problem is that they are not consistently reliable. We've gone through thousands of drives at my job and I've dealt with hundreds personally. Every single drive I have seen die in the last 6 years at my job has been a Seagate Barracuda.

We did have one Seagate Cheetah die, but that thing was a beast and lasted over 8 years of very heavy usage. The other drives died within either 6 months or a year.

Hey, if the OP wants a Barracuda, I won't stop him, you vote with your wallet.

But I am saying, if you are putting on data you don't want to lose or mission critical data, do not use Barracuda's, go with WD or Samsung.
 
OP stated he was just looking for a boot drive, he has his critical stuff on other drives.
 
You do realize that even if their failure rate was double that of the competition, with a single drive, that makes next to no difference? The standard deviation on AFRs is so low that if you look at studies (see: google's), you'll realize that brand is irrelevant.
 
Blue Fox said:
You do realize that even if their failure rate was double that of the competition, with a single drive, that makes next to no difference? The standard deviation on AFRs is so low that if you look at studies (see: google's), you'll realize that brand is irrelevant.
Click to expand...

Yes, I do realize that. I'm just trying to help the OP avoid unnecessary headache from buying a cheap-ass drive when there are better models available. Please note, I'm talking about models, not brands/manufacturers. ;)

rive22, yeah, those Blue drives are very reliable, even more so than the Green/Black models. I'm using 3 in my server and they have been rock solid.
 
I appreciate all the feedback, I'm usually a person who goes for reliability over cheapness, and would be willing to pay the extra $20 for something that goes the distance (that's what she said).

Like I said, I have a 36GB Raptor from WD that's been going solid for I don't even know how many years. I also have a 320GB from Seagate that's been going strong for a couple years now too. Like I said, with programs and operating systems getting larger, my 36GB WD is getting a bit slim for storing an OS + updates + drivers + all the other crazy mess.

And I COULD afford a SSD, but I'm really hard pressed to spend $200 on just a hard drive that has only 120~128GB on it regardless of the seconds I save in boot up/read/write/application time. The price/GB ratio is simply nowhere near what I would be willing to fork up, as I'm not a HEAVY hard drive usage person, and, like I mentioned, most of my stuff is either on the 320GB or the 600GB external.
 
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