Question: I understand the difference between SATA-2 and SATA-3, and what L1-3 cache are. But I am trying to choose between two internal harddrives. Both are 1TB capacity, with 7200RPM. The difference between the two option is that one is SATA-2 with 64MB cache, and the other is SATA-3 with 32MB cache.
So what would be “better”/faster between those internal harddrives? I will use the harddrive as a second internal (slave) HDD. Mainly for storing and transferring large files.
Answer: I was going to write an answer saying if speed for transfer was important for the large backup files then use SATA-3, but after looking at this paper http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/evolution_to_sata_6gb_storage.pdf I’m not sure if the interface speed is going to make a difference, because it is the hard drive that is the limit.
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Why Is SATA 6Gb/s Needed Now? ?Today, hard drives for PCs don t seem to be pushing the limits of the SATA 3Gb/s interface. The highest-performance desktop drives on the market deliver about 1.5Gb/s in sustained data transfer rates. Add another 0.5Gb/s in command overhead that is not available for general data transfers, and you still have 1Gb/s of headroom before you bump into the 3Gb/s ceiling. But it won t be long before hard drive technology catches up to the SATA 2.0 standard. Seagate estimates that hard drive transfer rates will exceed 2.5Gb/s by mid-2011. Add in the 0.5Gb/s command overhead, and the SATA 2.0 standard is out of gas.
The PDF was dated January 2010.
The did do a comparison between SATA-2 & SATA-3, and 32MB & 64MB, but unfortunately, they compared slow interface and less cache to faster interface and larger cache. ?It would have been interesting if they did the comparison you were looking for.
Unfortunately, I think looking at the hardware websites and getting independent numbers on the actual throughput is the only true way to know.