Hard drive cache size question?

[ingeborgdot]

Seagate came out with a 500gb hdd that has a 32mb cache.  How important is cache size?  Will it make much of a difference in speed?  Would it be more important to have the 32mb cache size on my os hdd or as my video, pics etc. hard drives?  Please let me know what you understand about cache size on hdd because I don't for sure.

[saoirse]

Will it make much of a difference in speed?

To be honest, not really.  Hard discs do require a small amount of buffer in order to operate (operation algorithms, etc.) but this is nowhere near 32MB.  I wouldn't pay more money for a drive, just for a larger buffer.

A drive buffer is used to retrieve small amounts of data to limit disc access (head movement).  Under normal Windows operation, 8 or even 16MB is plenty.  A huge buffer would enable us to cache all sorts of information, but you won't be able to do this with 32MB.

I consider cache sizes these days a selling point.  Superfluous.

[ingeborgdot]

It is $5 more for 32mb instead of 16mb.  Why wouldn't I get 32 instead of 16 for $5?

[saoirse]

Why?  Because 32MB really doesn't offer you anything extra.  I just don't think it's worth it.

True, $5 isn't a particularly large sum of money, but why pay more money for something pretty much useless?