5400 rpm WIth More Cache, or 7200 rpm With Less?

[Carl DaBeast]

In the near future I may have to buy a new harddrive if I decide on purchasing a very small case so that it is easy to move. The only issue I am facing is that I may not be able to move over my 3.5" drive as it needs to sit in the same compartment as the graphics card and there's a few millimetres of a clearance issue. and I'm not about to buy a new graphics card to fit a larger hard drive when I can just use a 2.5" drive instead. However when I was looking at what I could find locally (to avoid shipment fees and import tax) the only 2.5" hard drives I could find are the Seagate Barracuda at 5200 rpm with 128MB of cache and the WD Black at 7200 rpm with 32MB of cache.

 

Which drive should I go for? While I would assume that the 5400 rpm drive would be slower it would do better at small files because it has a larger buffer, but then again I might be confusing how the cache buffer works.

 

Thank you,

Da Beast.

[Crunchy Dragon]

I would go with the 7200rpm drive just for the higher speed and performance.

[Mooshi]

Cache doesn't make up for slow spindle speed.

[Carl DaBeast]

2 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I would go with the 7200rpm drive just for the higher speed and performance.

 

1 minute ago, Mooshi said:

Cache doesn't make up for slow spindle speed.

Thank you, I guess I misunderstood what the cache does.

[Mooshi]

4 minutes ago, Carl DaBeast said:

 

Thank you, I guess I misunderstood what the cache does.

Higher cache is nice, but the higher rotation speed will give more consistent performance. If both drives had the same speed, more cache would win no contest.

[Electronics Wizardy]

What exact drives? some 5400rpm drives are faster than 7200 rpm drives due to how the platters are layed out.

[Canada EH]

always go with 7200rpm