Cache size importance in 3.5" hard drives?

How important is the cache size when it comes to a hard drive? I am looking at a few models now. I would like to just get a new internal, 3.5" and slap it in my current, really nice enclosure. But that would mean I would have to pay for a cheap enclosure or IDE to USB cable so I could transfer the files from the old HD onto the new one.

The cost of an external on sale is arguably cheaper than the same-size HD plus the enclosure. The problem being the internal would have a 16mb cache while the ready-made LaCie external has only 2mb. But how big a difference does this make? Everything is 7200rpm.

I use the HD mainly for media storage...music, videos, etc. etc. Occasionally I use it to save some video I'm encoding as well.

Thanks for the tips.

 

I would gather a larger cache would benefit in the transfer of larger files, while smaller files under the cache size in particular wont. 2mb cache is quite an old model as before the 16mb versions came out there were 8mb cache sizes. In a desktop system the difference between 2 and 8mb was quite significant so 16mb would make a bigger difference. What will you use this drive for? If it stores an OS the 16mb will definitely be a bonus as it will make for a quicker system but for a simple file storage the 2mb LaCie might be a better bargain.

you also have the USB speed limitation to consider and whether the slow USB speeds will nullify any benefit the cache may provide.

 

Thanks for the info. In the end, I decided not to buy it after reading user reviews of the LaCie. Apparently they're garbage devices that fail very, very frequently, and are generally overpriced and overheat. That's just what I gathered from reviews anyway, no agenda here. But hopefully the info will help for when I do replace my current drive.