Cache or RPM?

[LeapingThongs]

in Hard Drive.... which is more important? which determine the fast reading, fast loading? cache or RPM?

I saw a hard drive with 7200rpm, 32mb cache and the other hard drive I saw is 15,000rpm but only 16mb cache.

which is faster? which read faster? which load stuff faster? more cache or more rpm?



edit: forgot to mention that I have a 7200rpm with 2mb cache and I can feel the sluggish. it made me think cache matter but the 15,000rpm sound sonic since I usually see 7200rpm.

 

[Nodsu]

RPM. The cache is almost irrelevant for a modern OS. Compare the on-disk 32MB cache to perhaps some 320MB cache your OS allocates for disk IO (assuming 1GB of RAM). The OS cache will completely overshadow the disk drive cache for most operations.

A nice benchmark here comparing two identical hard drives with different caches: http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/seagate16/ Note the difference between benchmarks (bypassing OS caching) and "real-life" tests!

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Hard drive performance depends mainly on the mechanical parts inside it. So RPM is going to be much better gauge of performance than cache size, as Nodsu has already said.

 

[Cinders]

The 15,000 RPM drive is going to be Freaking expensive and probably much smaller than the 7200RPM drive at the same price. If you want fast drives then you might consider purchasing large Hitachi Deskstars. They are well reviewed.

 

[Julio Franco]

In my opinion 10k RPM HDDs is one of the best investments you can make. It can benefit your daily desktop usage performance noticeably.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

I'd second that. My two Raptors are capable of loading Windows completely in less than 30 seconds. That'd take far longer with two 7200RPM drives. But faster drives do run hotter. That 15000RPM drive will run very hot I reckon, so better get some cooling for it too if you're gonna get it.