How much does HDD cache matter

[Colonials66]

I am looking into purchasing a new HDD for my PC for increased storage and was wondering whether the cache size made any real world difference between two drives.

Of the two drives I have looked at, they are both the same model, but one is the newer version. The older drive has a 64MB cache, where as the newer has 256MB. I believe the RPM to both be 7200. With the older drive being 20-30% cheaper, is it worth spending the extra money, or would I be better going for the older cheaper model?

 

Thanks for any help.

[seagate_surfer]

The cache is going to affect read performance more so than write performance, as it makes certain data quicker for the drive to access. Not as big of a performance jump as you'd see going from a hard drive to an SSD, but still somewhat faster on reads. You would also want to consider that a newer drive will likely have better warranty availability and newer, sometimes better engineered firmware as well which can effect drive performance.

[Guest]

If you use it for mass storage, I would go for the cheaper/older model. Especialy if you already have an SSD.

 

Btw, Seagate ftw @seagate_surfer. According to lots of people, I've got one of the worst HDD's, but it's still going strong/zero issues.

 

[Blake]

7 hours ago, Dutch-stoner said:

If you use it for mass storage, I would go for the cheaper/older model. Especialy if you already have an SSD.

 

Btw, Seagate ftw @seagate_surfer. According to lots of people, I've got one of the worst HDD's, but it's still going strong/zero issues.

 

You just got lucky, The reason for the 3TB seagate drive are bad meme, is due to the factory they where made in was flooded back around 2010, and surprise surprise they had really bad failure rates, or your drive wasn't ever affected by this (mid 2014 purchase?)

 

Nowday's most failure rates are within margin of error.

[Blake]

8 hours ago, Colonials66 said:

I am looking into purchasing a new HDD for my PC for increased storage and was wondering whether the cache size made any real world difference between two drives.

Of the two drives I have looked at, they are both the same model, but one is the newer version. The older drive has a 64MB cache, where as the newer has 256MB. I believe the RPM to both be 7200. With the older drive being 20-30% cheaper, is it worth spending the extra money, or would I be better going for the older cheaper model?

 

Thanks for any help.

Assuming both new in box? just grab the older one. longer burst speeds with more cache, but it doesn't really matter.

 

You might want to double check there aren't any other features your missing (i.e. better queueing etc)

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Blake said:

(mid 2014 purchase?)

I've bought it 3,5 years ago. Due to cleaning, I would asume I own that disk for about 1288 days.