View Full Version : increasing hdd cache size
STEvil
03-21-2004, 12:08 AM
Anyone considered soldering a larger sdram chip to the bottom of their HDD for a 32mb cache drive? :D
I think i'll mess around with a toast drive and a stick of ram tomarrow, see just how hard its gonna be... :smileysex
Farbror
03-21-2004, 02:42 PM
Heheh thats something i would like to see some pics on.....
Good luck with the mod i hope it´s going to work....
haha.. i've thinked about that too.. but its not gonna work :D ( doh )
blinky
03-24-2004, 11:08 PM
ull need to mod the firmware, so that it can address that much cache i would think
apathy^2
03-24-2004, 11:56 PM
the day this works is the day wd, maxtor, seagate, hitachi/ibm, etc make a collective "D'OH!" heard throughout the community.
Farbror
03-25-2004, 01:30 AM
Originally posted by apathy^2
the day this works is the day wd, maxtor, seagate, hitachi/ibm, etc make a collective "D'OH!" heard throughout the community.
Yeah!!! (why don´t they build in more like 16mb it can´t be that hard....)
MentholMoose
03-26-2004, 09:19 PM
Originally posted by Farbror
Yeah!!! (why don´t they build in more like 16mb it can´t be that hard....) True. Some laptop drives even have that much. Maybe it just doesn't make that much of a difference.
NST6563
03-28-2004, 05:44 PM
I would think there would be a big difference, but to a point since it would seem to bring diminishing returns.
I know I noticed a big difference going from a 7200rpm drive w/2mb cache to a 7200rpm drive w/8mb cache.
of course...then again, just to contradict my own statement above...we have a Compaq server at work that has a raid controller in it that has 256Mb cache on it (I think it's 256Mb...might be 128...I don't remember right now, I've have to check when I get back to work).
sjohnson
03-28-2004, 06:38 PM
EMC Symmetrix arrays use up to 128GB of cache in addition to drive cache to speed up transactions. Symmetrix arrays provide up to 17.5 Terabytes of storage per array.
Enhanced cache directory technology, acting on up to 128GB of global memory (with up to 32 independent regions), provides up to 32 concurrent 500MB/s paths through memory - up to 16 GB/s aggregate throughput...
They are quite fast when hooked up to a server using fiber-optic channels and handle extremely heavy traffic. I worked at Dendrite (New Jersey) and we had terabyte-sized databases. When I left the company they were beginning data-mining.
The biggest hurdle facing anyone increasing the cache on their own HD is getting the HD firmware to use it and to use it optimally.