8mb Cache HD in cabinet - worth it??

[mkdevo]

hello all,

was wondering if it would be worth the investment to upgrade my future cabinet's PC's hard drive from a 2 mb cache drive to an 8mb cache drive. i need to upgrade the suze of my drive anyways, so i was wondering if there's a noticable enough difference in MAME to warrant doing this...

thanks in advance...b

[reighty]

A hard drive with a larger cache will only make things load quicker and since mame roms are so small in general it probably would not make much difference if any noticable at all.

[Bursar]

If you have large games that often refer to files on the disk (such as CHD games or Daphne MPEGs), then you should see slightly better performance with the larger cache.

If you don't play these types of games, then you won't notice any difference.

[Random24]

Well the WD 8MB cache drives come with a 3 year warranty as opposed to the 1 year warranty that the 2MB cache come with.  That was enough to make me consider buying  the 8MB cache disks only from now on.

[Silverwind]

Well the WD 8MB cache drives come with a 3 year warranty as opposed to the 1 year warranty that the 2MB cache come with.  That was enough to make me consider buying  the 8MB cache disks only from now on.

I would say.. if the cost is not very significant.. than the more the better..

5400rpm vs. 7200rpm..
2meg cache vs. 8 meg
etc etc

Hard drive space is generally fairly cheap.. and typically isn't much more to get that faster drive...  it can't hurt..

[SirPoonga]

More isn't always better
A 5400rpm drive with 8meg cache will outperform a 7200rpm drive with 2meg cache.


Anyway, go for it, larger games will load faster.

[Silverwind]

More isn't always better
A 5400rpm drive with 8meg cache will outperform a 7200rpm drive with 2meg cache.


Anyway, go for it, larger games will load faster.

i did not make that comparison, only 5400 to 7200 and 2 meg to 8 meg.. not 7200 2meg to 5400 8 meg..

just as a rule of thumb more is better.. ie 7200rpm 8 meg drive will be faster than a 5400 rpm 8 meg drive..

of course there are many other factors such as the density of the platters.. as a greater density will allow for more data to be read in a single rotation...

more is always better if you compare the same statistic.. (as long as it doesn't cause problems such as excess heat, instability, etc)

[radiator]

get the WD drive, they're incredible value for money...

and reviews indicate that they outperform many SCSI drives too

but yeah, the speed increase will only be seen with large data transfers (and booting windows)

 

[BombProofPlane]

i got that 120gb wd w/8mb cache its great i say get it

[lightspeed]

i got that 120gb wd w/8mb cache its great i say get it

It can't hurt,  but you should evalulate the incremental cost and consider spending it on a faster proc or more (and faster) memory.

[Bursar]

As it happens my 80GB drive with 8MB cache arrived today

I figured 120GB for a MAME machine was a bit of overkill Specially as the OS will be sitting on its own drive, and this drive is just for the games.

[Odonadon]

Wow, look at you guys.  I've got all the games (MAME, SNES, TG16, etc) that I'll ever want to play, and Win98se on a 8GB HD with 3gigs currently free.  I say spend your money on RAM/CPU upgrades.  I don' think there are any more than 5gigs worth of MAME ROMs total.  Why on earth would you need 80gigs of space?

Odonadon

[Distortion]

Wow, look at you guys.  I've got all the games (MAME, SNES, TG16, etc) that I'll ever want to play, and Win98se on a 8GB HD with 3gigs currently free.  I say spend your money on RAM/CPU upgrades.  I don' think there are any more than 5gigs worth of MAME ROMs total.  Why on earth would you need 80gigs of space?

Odonadon

That's true, unless you're someone like me who plans to still use it as a computer.

[mkdevo]

because between mame roms, console roms, pc games and an OS, i've got a 40-gb drive maxed out right now..

it's cool that you can be happy with 5gb! hell, i wish i could! but it's all about completeness for me, so... i'm gonna need an 80-120gb drive..

[rampy]

Why on earth would you need 80gigs of space?

These guys must watch pr0n on their cabinets =P

Stay away from the guy with the cabinet that has the "built in kleenex holder" instead of cupholders...

rampy

[Bursar]

Wow, look at you guys.  I've got all the games (MAME, SNES, TG16, etc) that I'll ever want to play, and Win98se on a 8GB HD with 3gigs currently free.  I say spend your money on RAM/CPU upgrades.  I don' think there are any more than 5gigs worth of MAME ROMs total.  Why on earth would you need 80gigs of space?

Odonadon

I plan on using the PC for a few other things as well as gaming, and disks are cheap at the moment.

And I have spent the money on CPU and RAM as well. Just stuck in a new mobo, P4 @ 2.53GHz and 512MB DDR-RAM. Should last me a while (I hope)