quick answers 320gb 8mbcache or 250gb 16mb cache

[mullered07]

as the title says i just got a refund of ebuyer and have some spare money for a hdd, should i get a Maxtor STM3320820AS 320gb w 8mb cache or a Seagate ST3250620AS 250GB w 16mb ?

btw they both have perpendicular recording and are bout the same price, what diff will the extra 8mb cache make ?

 

[mullered07]

ok nm lol i couldnt wait and need to order this like yesterday in the end i chose

Seagate ST3250620AS 250GB SATAII/300 7200RPM 16MB Cache

it had some really good reviews and heres some of the product features:

Best-in-class environmental specification and reliability features;
New perpendicular recording technology enables higher areal density, fewer moving parts and increased dependability;
Adaptive Fly Height offers consistent read/write performance from the beginning to the end of your computing workload;
Clean Sweep automatically calibrates your drive;
Directed Offline Scan runs diagnostics when storage access is not needed;
RoHS Directive-compliant design assures you an environmentally conscious product;
Enhanced G-Force Protection defends against handling damage;
Seagate SoftSonic motor enables whisper-quiet operation.

ill post back tomorrow with some reviews etc when it gets here (damn just spent a £10 on that next day delivery )

 

[HookeyStreet]

ok nm lol i couldnt wait and need to order this like yesterday in the end i chose

Seagate ST3250620AS 250GB SATAII/300 7200RPM 16MB Cache

it had some really good reviews and heres some of the product features:

Best-in-class environmental specification and reliability features;
New perpendicular recording technology enables higher areal density, fewer moving parts and increased dependability;
Adaptive Fly Height offers consistent read/write performance from the beginning to the end of your computing workload;
Clean Sweep automatically calibrates your drive;
Directed Offline Scan runs diagnostics when storage access is not needed;
RoHS Directive-compliant design assures you an environmentally conscious product;
Enhanced G-Force Protection defends against handling damage;
Seagate SoftSonic motor enables whisper-quiet operation.

ill post back tomorrow with some reviews etc when it gets here (damn just spent a £10 on that next day delivery )

I think you made the right choice m8

 

[ktr]

I got the same HDD for my HTPC, great drive...

 

[mullered07]

ooo nice so whats it like ? is it quiet? quick ?

 

[zekrahminator]

If you hadn't already bought it, I'd bring up a quick point. You will never use that extra hard drive space, you will certainly use that extra cache space. Think about it...hard drive cache = flash memory, flash memory = quicker than hard disk. 16MB is like 5 songs .

 

[WarEagleAU]

yeah, the extra 8mb makes a huge difference. If you ever find an old 8mb drive, install it and compare the two. Youll see a huge difference.

BTW! Good choice. I have a maxtor and it works great...but Seagate is tops to me.

 

[ktr]

ooo nice so whats it like ? is it quiet? quick ?

speed is great, very silent, doesnt get that hot...great hdd.

 

[Scavar]

Seagate owns Maxtor I believe, but somehow the Seagate HDDs are always better then the Maxtor to ones(Maxtor has been hell to me, bastards)

That Seagate drive you got looks good. Remember to always go for the higher cache drive.

Also I feel that 250GB is as high as you should go for your main HDD. I kind of feel it's as high as you should go period, as I have had terrible luck with HDDs higher then that

 

[mullered07]

yeah, the extra 8mb makes a huge difference. If you ever find an old 8mb drive, install it and compare the two. Youll see a huge difference.

BTW! Good choice. I have a maxtor and it works great...but Seagate is tops to me.

check my specs 40gb wd sata 2mb cache, thats why im gettin a new one, i cant game with this hdd its lags too much

 

[Scavar]

check my specs 40gb wd sata 2mb cache, thats why im gettin a new one, i cant game with this hdd its lags too much

Ouch, good call on upgrading. You will deff be able to actually see the increase in performance from 2mb to 16mb. Not to mention all that extra HDD space you'll have now.

 

[mullered07]

i was quite naughty in how i obtained it though lol in my original post it says that i got a refund which is true, but i got a refund for an item i hadnt bought,

ive started building and selling pc's online and have ordered about £2000 worth of stuff from a certain uk online e-tailer, anyway with one order i ordered 3x hdd's (aswell as mobo's cases, cpu's etc) and thought id say i didnt get one

well 5 days later after me being adament and persistent they said they had contacted there drop ship warehouse and it looks as though the one hdd had gone missing! wtf!!! bonus lol so i got a nice £42back into my paypal account lol and hence the new 250gb hdd arriving tomorrow

in my defence i did pay an extra £20 for the one i ordered lol

p.s its a good job because today guess what my ol' faithful 2mb cache 40gb wd sata started to die, so it must have been fate

so the moral of the story i hear you say ? god loves a tryer

 

[k0rn_h0li0]

can you guys explain to me which i'm very new to is what is the difference between 8mb cache and 16mb cache? is it like faster file transfering and reading or what?

 

[lemonadesoda]

so the moral of the story i hear you say ? god loves a tryer

Not exactly. Dishonest people get away with it once... and think they are untouchable. And that only makes them more dishonest.

This behaviour is not the culture of this forum. You should be ashamed of yourself. And

 

[ktr]

can you guys explain to me which i'm very new to is what is the difference between 8mb cache and 16mb cache? is it like faster file transfering and reading or what?

this is a good explanation:

Hard disk cache's are an important element of a computer system whose primary aim is to increase overall system performance by saving data in faster banks of RAM.

Hard drives have a cache built in to hold data that is being written to or read from the hard disk. The purpose of doing so tries to reduce the number of occasions in which data has to be physically written and read from the hard disk platter. By retaining recent data within the cache performance is increased as this memory is much faster and saves time on repeat recalls.

The other primary function of a cache is to try to match speeds between devices so that the faster device is not held up, or isn't held up as much. In the case of a printer the cache stores data sent to the printer from the system where it is held until the printer is able to print it off. This enables the system to continue other tasks whilst the printers cache holds onto the information.

Cache's exist also in the computers operating system where a specified amount of RAM is set aside for storing repeatedly used data to again reduced the amount that has to be written on to the hard drive. Users can adjust their system cache but must make sure that they do not allow too much RAM to be used in this manor and hence cause less RAM to be available for programs which in turn have to use hard disk memory thus defeating the intent.

 

[mullered07]

Not exactly. Dishonest people get away with it once... and think they are untouchable. And that only makes them more dishonest.

This behaviour is not the culture of this forum. You should be ashamed of yourself. And

wow you really need to take a chill pill, btw that online e-tailor i was talking about ive spent over £2000 with them this month thus far, if you dont like it thats your problem, lighten up for god sake the world is full of self righteous holier than now people dont add to that :shadedshu

 

[k0rn_h0li0]

ic ic so the cache is between how it is read by using the ram and being written. so the more the cache the faster it reads but it is also depending on your ram. interesting thanks ktr

 

[Guttboy]

KTR thanks for the post...very informative!