Toshiba 16MB Cache Hard Drive

[lfeagan]

I was wondering if anyone had tried the 16MB Cache Toshiba hard drive. Here is the Newegg.com link I found it from;
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 020&depa=0

And here is the Toshiba webpage on it:
http://www.toshiba-europe.com/storage/I ... =MK8026GAX
You click on the menus on the right to get to tech specs, etc...
Seems like a pretty nice drive. And no, don't suggest a Hitachi anything, I refuse to buy one based on 20 hard drives of experience.

[daeojkim]

WOW 16MB cache...
That could potentially come in handy when I would like to transfer large files while running applications...
I was planning to upgrade the HD and I should definitely consider this. I don't think it is much more expensive than a 8MB cache 80GB HD.

Nice finding lfeagan.

[monty cantsin]

I was wondering if anyone had tried the 16MB Cache Toshiba hard drive.

In the (dated) reviews that I've seen, older Toshiba drives with 16MB appeared to be rather slow, the larger cache didn't help at all.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/hitachi_ ... 00rpm.html

http://www.barefeats.com/fire32.html

And no, don't suggest a Hitachi anything, I refuse to buy one based on 20 hard drives of experience.

The new HitachiGST drives (TravelStar 80GN, 4k40, 4k80, 5k80, 5k100, 7k60) are all designs based on IBM's experience. They don't have much to do with the older Hitachis. Hitachi's own line of hard drives (named DK23xx or the like in the notebook field, for instance) actually has been totally discontinued. The new HitachiGST is rather the continuation of IBM's hard drive business than that of Hitachi's.

[Voodle]

- And no, don't suggest a Hitachi anything, I refuse to buy one based on 20 hard drives of experience.

My toshiba 6025GAX (the 60 gig version of the 80 gig linked) that I had, failed after six months, and toshiba aren't even close to hitachi in warranty service - I sent the drive back to the company that I bought it from and after about almost two months of waiting, they refunded the price I paid. I'll bet you they wouldn't have done that if toshiba had sent out a replacement

[lfeagan]

Yeah, it certainly looks like the Toshiba is not so good. I am now beginning to look at the Western Digital Scorpio and the Seagate Momentus. Unfortunately Newegg only seems to have the 40 and 60GB Scorpios and no Momentus drives at all. If anyone has experience with either of these drives, I would love to hear it.

Or maybe I will go with a brand I tend to trust a good deal, Fujtisu and get their 80GB, 5,400 RPM, 8mb cache drive. Anyone ever try one of these?

[mgp]

silentpcreview -- a great reference for silencing your pc btw -- has a review on many notebook hds, including this one.

[lfeagan]

thanks mgp, good call on the link.

[leesiulung]

I believe the extra cache mostly only helps with data that is being read and then reread over time. The extra cache holds the data that has already been read in to memory, such that the next time you access the same data (or data in the same region, i.e. pages) it does not have to bring it in from disk. It utilizes the principle of spatial and temporal locality... The difference in fetching data from disk to memory is several orders of magnitude different.

The best bet is the faster 7200 rpm drives, that significantly increases loads from disks than going from 8 to 16mb of cache...