cache and boot speed

[Rainbow Six]

I had a 160GB HDD in my computer build originally and added a 640GB HDD yesterday. My original plan was when I get Windows 7 to install it on the smaller HDD and use the larger one for storage.

But then I realized: the smaller has only 8mb cache while the larger has 32mb cache.

Does the cache size make any difference in boot speed?

[deathman20]

I had a 160GB HDD in my computer build originally and added a 640GB HDD yesterday. My original plan was when I get Windows 7 to install it on the smaller HDD and use the larger one for storage.

But then I realized: the smaller has only 8mb cache while the larger has 32mb cache.

Does the cache size make any difference in boot speed?

It helps yes.... but what is going to help many times more is that its a new HDD. Depending on how old that 160Gig is, it can be up to Half if not more the actual speed of a 640Gig HDD in reads and writes! So really the cache... forget the cache its not going to have nearly as much of a hit as the read/write speeds which its getting slowed down by on the 160Gig Drive.

[87dtna]

Just use the 640, trust me I have two 250gb WD hard drives with 16mb cache in RAID 0...I used to have a 640gb seagate 7200.11, and it only had 10mb/s slower average transfer rate BUT it had 60mb/s faster burst speed.
Now, thats hard drives that are faster than your 160 as a single, and there's two in Raid 0 not as fast as the 640.

[Rainbow Six]

Depending on how old that 160Gig is, it can be up to Half if not more the actual speed of a 640Gig HDD in reads and writes!
I built this computer last August. Would a few months make a difference? If not, does this mean the two would have nearly identical performance?

[Dapman02]

I built this computer last August. Would a few months make a difference? If not, does this mean the two would have nearly identical performance?

It's more about the platter density than the cache.

[deathman20]

I built this computer last August. Would a few months make a difference? If not, does this mean the two would have nearly identical performance?

It's more about the platter density than the cache.

Yes its about platter density. With the PC newer it might mean its probably a single platter HDD. Still though its lacking and would be roughly half the speed of a 640Gig HDD which has 2x 333Gig Platters in it. If it was 80-100Gig Platters (don't remember what the sizes was back then for the 160Gig drives it could be even 1/3 of the speed of the 640Gig HDD. Let alone you have a Black drive which does a little better in speed from its daul controllers onboard.