Hard Drive help

Im looking to buy a new internal hard drive for my desktop. It will be for storage not the OS. I will be regularly backing up to it and accessing the files on it. It needs to be 4TB

Ive seen lots in my price range and I get the different speeds but what is the cache size all about?

128mb vs 64mb cache. Is bigger better? Is there really and difference in the real world? Also are there any brands or models I should look for or steer clear of?

Thanks in advance.

Cache is that temporary element before it gets committed, think of it as water flowing through a pipe - clearly if you want a faster flow of water you would go for 128 Litres per second instead of 64 Litres.

As for what this means in real time I haven't a clue - the biggest internal hard drive I have is 1 Tb.

Thank you for that.

Cache can be thought of similar to RAM in a computer..>

it's temporary storage, that's much quicker than the drive it's self, so when you're copying to the drive, it fills the cache first, and reads from the cache to the drive, so that the communication between the drive and the computer is as fast as possible..

also works for reads from the drive, there's various algorithms involved, but in simple terms it tries to guess what bits of data you may need next based on what you are currently doing with your computer, it then reads that data, and holds it in cache ready in case your computer wants it, then it can access it quicker.

as I said, there's MUCH more involved with cache, but that's a very basic explanation..

you will notice a difference, (I noticed going from 32mb > 64mb cache)

i'm on a Hybrid Drive (SSHD) which basically has 8GB cache, (But not in the traditional sense) - but that's making things more complicated!

Note: I wouldn't purchase a 4TB drive, i'd get 2x 2TB drives if you have the space, because A) I wouldn't put all your eggs in 1 basket (metaphorically) and B) doing copying/moving between folders on the same drive will be much slower than with 2 drives..

(You could always go for 2x 4TB and look into RAID, but that's another thing completely)

I had RAID many years ago. Two Raptor drives and it went like stink but one went bad and so all data was gone. Now I wont entertain RAID.

The Hybrid Drive (SSHD) is interesting. Ive had quick look on Amazon, found a decent priced 2TB so im considering grabbing two of those.

Have one for the OS and one for the storage and keep one of my old Hard Drives as a spare.

They are a bit more pricey than the standards drives but the reviews are very good and the extra speed seems to make up for the extra cost.

Cheers for that

I had RAID many years ago. Two Raptor drives and it went like stink but one went bad and so all data was gone. Now I wont entertain RAID.

The Hybrid Drive (SSHD) is interesting. Ive had quick look on Amazon, found a decent priced 2TB so im considering grabbing two of those.

Have one for the OS and one for the storage and keep one of my old Hard Drives as a spare.

They are a bit more pricey than the standards drives but the reviews are very good and the extra speed seems to make up for the extra cost.

Cheers for that

well, it depends which RAID you used, Striped or mirror, or striped/mirror...

Striped, spans the data across 2 drives, would give you a total of 8TB to use (with 2x 4TB drives), and increases the speed as it splits the data...

Mirrored, does exactly that, it mirrors the data across 2 (or more) drives, so if one dies you have a full backup - but it can also increase speed as it can read the data from both drives at the same time.. (only really write speeds that aren't increased any) but you only have the space of one drive available (4TB for 2x 4TB drives)

if one drive dies in striped, you loose the lot - if one dies in mirrored, you still have a backup, and can add a replacement empty drive to the Array, it will copy all the data from the good drive, and work as it did previously...