which takes more cache from an external hard drive? music files or Raw phot

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which takes more cache from an external hard drive? music files or Raw phot

I will be getting another external bare hard drive in an enclosure, & would like to know what file types need or would best utilize the bigger 64mb cache on the newer hard drives now.

I have content that would go on a hard drive; photos (jpg,tiff, & RAW) & .mpg, & .mov movie files off my digicams, as well as various Adobe photoshop files; .PSD, & word process & spreadsheet documents.

My other content that would go onto a hard drive is music; itunes library, albums (300+ or more) ripped in flac & mp3 format.

One of these contents will go onto the new 64mb 1TB external hard drive, & the other content will stay on a 32mb cache 1TB external hard drive. which content would be best on the hard drive with 64mb cache?

macbook pro 2010 i7, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Feb 26, 2011 11:17 PM

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Answer 1

Network 23

Level 6

12,351 points

Feb 26, 2011 11:28 PM in response to Sossity

I'm no engineer but based on how caches work and what they're for, since they hang onto frequently used data to speed up access, the bigger cache would be more useful for files you keep going back to a lot. Probably not music or video, since you usually listen to a file once and then not again for days or weeks. Also because MP3s are so small and low data rate that you could play them off of a very slow drive and wouldn't know the difference.

The raw files seem like a great candidate, since if you're editing them your photo app keeps reading the file constantly. I would say whatever files you edit the most heavily should be on the big cache drive. Anything that is more like one-time occasional read should be on the other drive.

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