RPM or Cache Size for Best Performance?

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zacdl

[H]ard|Gawd
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Basically, without spending a ton of money, I was looking at either a 7200RPM 16MB cache hard drive, or a 10,000RPM 8MB cache hard drive.

My question- is what gives you better performance? More RPMs or a larger cache?

I personally am leaning to the larger cache, but I am not sure- hence why I ask ;)
 
RPMs will matter more. Windows caches a lot more than 16 MB anyway in memory, and fetching from memory is faster than fetching from the onboard cache. I think manufacturers are using bigger caches now simply because they can't get lower density memory chips in volume anymore. It doesn't make an ounce of performance difference in real world usage. (Unless you're so short on memory that you're swapping, then I suggesting getting more ram...)
 
What drives are these? Raptor 740GD (I'm guessing) and what? The generation matters a good deal, because higher densities mean faster STRs and slightly slower seeks.
 
Anything, really.

Probably WD drives is what I'll end up getting one way or the other.

Here is the 16MB drive.
 
Just be careful, though, because if you do decide to opt for higher RPMs then make sure not to grab SCSI stuff just because it is 10k or 15k. Many of the older ones will be far slower than modern SATA drives, regardless of the spindle speed.
 
The Raptor will be significantly faster. Out of curiosity, why are you comparing a $60 drive to a $120-ish drive? What about (for example) a 5000aaks?
 
I'll play the devil's advocate here. Do you really need the speed? If not, save your money and get a larger 7200rpm drive.

But yes, 10k SATA drives are faster than 7200rpm drives.
 
Sovereign said:
Unless you have a SCSI controller, you have two options for high-RPM drives. Those options are:
- Western Digital Raptor 74GB w/16MB cache
- Western Digital Raptor 150GB (sans window) w/16MB cache
Click to expand...
Raptors aren't big enough. And they are rather on the pricey side...
I'm factoring in costs for two of whatever I end up getting- One is strictly a backup (haven't decided for a RAID1 (hardware backup only) or something else for data backup as well (if something gets corrupted)).


protias said:
But yes, 10k SATA drives are faster than 7200rpm drives.
Click to expand...

Let me ask you guys this: Is a 16MB cache hard drive noticeably faster than an 8MB one?
Same question about 7200RPM and 10000RPM hard drives.

Can you only notice it when editing video and such?
 
here's some dirt on performance, a 4200 vs. a 7200 will report a minimum 33% increase, laptop is roughly 33%. A Raptor in gaming will not change performance much vs. some of the fastest WDigitals like the aajs, even in raid (edit:: aajsraid I mean). If you got money to burn, get a scsi sata drive (scsi attached interface) 36's are an EXPENSIVE 300 or so and store on an 160aajs or 250aajs..whatever. If anything, your best bet would be keeping your drive space usage to a minimum and windows indexing off. Two raptors...scsi attached....or just plain and simple $50-$70. 8mb is in most cases doing much better than a 16mb at <320gig. :eek:
 
Just too bad I can't find any SATA 3.0Gb/s 10K RPM drives...

I dislike SCSI ;)
 
Cuz it's faster than 1.5Gb/s.
But honestly, I don't care. SCSI would require me getting a new card, which IMO is just another thing to fail (I've had a ton more of those cards fail compared to on-board SATA connections).
 
zacdl said:
Cuz it's faster than 1.5Gb/s.
Click to expand...

Nope. The drives don't exceed 150 MB/s, so it doesn't matter that that's all the interface will handle. 3gbps is overkill, it's just good planning for the future to make the bus faster now.
 
zacdl said:
Let me ask you guys this: Is a 16MB cache hard drive noticeably faster than an 8MB one?
Same question about 7200RPM and 10000RPM hard drives.

Can you only notice it when editing video and such?
Click to expand...

I notice a big difference between SATA (non raptor) vs my 150GB Raptor. Of course, my gaming machine is a lot more powerful than the rest of my systems.
 
zacdl said:
Next question I guess- any SATA 10K RPMs?
Click to expand...

The Raptors are it. WD is the only hard drive maker without an enterprise segment to accidentally sabotage by selling consumer drives, so they're the only ones to make consumer-level 10k disks.
 
Sovereign said:
The 36GB Raptors suck, even with 16MB cache they are not worth it. A fast 7200RPM will spank them.
Click to expand...
Huh? What an ignorant statement. Their performance is on par with the 74 and 150GB drives. The ONLY difference is an additional platter and corresponding heads on the 150GB, and the 74GB drive just uses the other side of one platter like the 36GB drive, with an extra head as well. Typical low-level benchmarks show the same access times and STR with all the drives.
 
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