16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

[TRIGGER]

I know there has been a few hdd threads lately and Im seirous about upgrading my hard drives. I currently have a IBM Deskstar that is supposedly 40G as it reads on the sticker bit is actually 30gb. The ibm is 7200 rpms and seems to be the quickest and quietest i own. Anyone ever heard of Quantum Fireball harddrives? I know i havent but that one is also 30gb and who knows how much cache it has.. Well now i have a nice mobo with 4 sata2 3gb/s ports that i can all run in raid. So i'm left with a descision get 2 80gb seagates or WD's for like 45$ each which i can run in raid but its only 160gb.. Or get this western digital that is 250gb 16mb cache and lots of room for 80$ with rebates. What would you guys do? Are my old harddrives bottlenecking my system? All my friends say i shuold get an lcd but i dont know should i go for speed or a digital video signal. plese help me make this descision

[orangutang91]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

Go for the big one, the cache is nice n large, (the platters have more stuff on them too, so you acces stuff faster.)what model though? I would reccomend the caviar. CRT is cheaper than lcd, dont do that LCD, you should upgrade your HD, that is opinionated, do what suits your needs.

[casecutter]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

Get 2 250GB drives for raid and you won't be back in 12 months asking for more upgrade advice. As for brands, Western Digital or Seagate are the only two I would trust.

[orangutang91]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

2 in raid is a good idea

[TRIGGER]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

Well Im on a 90$ limit for my buget so I can't get two, so you guys would say get the 250GB drive then? Will this be faster then my current hdd's? Do you guys know if the Quantum Fireball brand of hdd's exist anymore?

[PrairieDawg]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

I believe Maxtor owns the Quantum Fireball name but they are no longer produced.

[TRIGGER]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

Wow i cant beleve i own a maxtor, i had a old 8gb max and that thing was loud as hell! vLOL

[orangutang91]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

8 gigs?!?!?!

[Spongebob]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

I know there has been a few hdd threads lately and Im seirous about upgrading my hard drives. I currently have a IBM Deskstar that is supposedly 40G as it reads on the sticker bit is actually 30gb. The ibm is 7200 rpms and seems to be the quickest and quietest i own. Anyone ever heard of Quantum Fireball harddrives? I know i havent but that one is also 30gb and who knows how much cache it has.. Well now i have a nice mobo with 4 sata2 3gb/s ports that i can all run in raid. So i'm left with a descision get 2 80gb seagates or WD's for like 45$ each which i can run in raid but its only 160gb.. Or get this western digital that is 250gb 16mb cache and lots of room for 80$ with rebates. What would you guys do? Are my old harddrives bottlenecking my system? All my friends say i shuold get an lcd but i dont know should i go for speed or a digital video signal. plese help me make this descision

Quantum no longer is around, they were bought out by Maxtor atleast 5 years ago and the last I heard Maxtor is suppose to be in the process or has all ready been bought out by Seagate.

If you decide to run a raid 0 array with 2 drives, just remember you take twice the risk of something going wrong. I found that out the hard way when one of my drives died and everything was gone before I did a backup:(. In my opinion raid didn't seem to make much difference in speed anyway, maybe a 4 drive raid array using 2 of the drives to mirror the other two would be good but it would also get spendy . I personally suggest one big drive with a 16mb cache buffer for the OS and whatever else and then if you want, just use another internernal drive for backup purposes since an internal drive is cheaper and faster than external for the price.

As far as lcd goes, thats a whole different subject. I recently used a widesceen LCD for a system but I don't think the PC market is quite ready for that yet unless you like to look at a lot of poorly stretched images. I good side stretch feature or something better was really needed for the one I seen. Ofcoarse I didn't get a chance to mess with the settings much so maybe I missed something that could have made things look better without the crunch effect. If you go LCD I don't suggest a widescreen quite yet.

[Munkul]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

maxtor are crap, if i may say so, having owned several varying models.
when considering hard disks, the larger the platter, the better, and 16mb cache may only help a little. WD have the best warranty, from what i remember.

[Yawgm0th]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

Those working with large volumes of OEM computers have always said Maxtor has the highest failure rate, but Maxtor was recently taken over by Seagate (and the transition is basically done; Maxtor lost around half of its employees), so its track record should improve.

Western Digital has three or five year warranties on most of its retail drives, however Seagate has five years on all retail drives and offers overall the "best" warranty.

[TRIGGER]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

I'm thinking the western digital drive is best for me as far as price/performance goes.

[amd_man2005]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

I'm a personal Seagate advocate. Got a 200gb 8mb cache drive year or so ago and it is a wonderful drive. Had a WD and Maxtor before that, the Maxtor died and the WD was quirky.

[matm347]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

I've not had any WD drives go bad on me in the ~15 years I've been working with hardware. I've had a few DOA though, but that could have been any number of things.

Seagate has improved quite a bit, and I'm actually considering buying their 750 GB since WD doesn't make anything larger than 320GB for PATA.

I'm sure you'd be happy with either brand, I'd suggest keeping with your price/performance reasoning.

Oh, and your Fireball probably has 1 or 2 megs cache, they were pretty good drives when they first came out, compared to the offerings at the time of course.
The more cache the better, but you won't be able to tell the difference between an 8 or 16 meg cache in real world performance.

Platter density, spindle speed and access times are what make more of a noticeable performance difference.
Hard drives continue to be the largest bottleneck in a CPU system, you will notice a good speed improvement with better hardware.

I just picked up a 20.1" Sceptre NagaIII for my parents CPU, the widescreen works well at it's native res of 1680x1050. Going for $250 @newegg after rebates...
Gaming was decent, nearly 100% acceptable to my picky eyes. Ghosting was there, but had to be looked for, nothing that was overly distracting.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824112176

[amd_man2005]

Re: 16mb Cache Vs 8mb cache

Well, I've never had a WD die on me either. Just had that one that didn't like nForce2 motherboards. But I think that was a known issue and hasn't been a problem since.