I noticed that the 250GB hard drives in the Mac Pros use 8MB instead of 16MB and I'm considering spending a little money getting a 250GB with 16MB cache if it makes any difference.
Also, which hard drive manufacturers do you guys recommend?
I can't speak much for the size of the cache making a difference but I can say that I have also been looking into harddrives of late and the responses were virtually all the same for me --> seagate wins the day. You can find some seagate drives at very reasonable prices from places such as Newegg.com. Check the reviews at the online shops as well and after filtering the daft responses I am sure you will see that seagate has a respected name. Anyway, seagate also offers a 5 yr manufacturers warrenty which is very nice.
I'll agree with Shroud and go with Seagate as well. A faster drive will make a bigger difference in performance than going from an 8MB cache to a 16MB cache. Unfortunately, high capacity 10,000 RPM drives are still fairly expensive.
Usually a top capacity high speed drive is not as large as a top capacity lower speed drive. It usually takes a while for the higher capacity drives to make it up to 10,000 RPM and faster. Just making a quick look... it seems that 300GB is the top capacity for a consumer 10,000 RPM drive and they seem to run about $500.
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Good luck in your search
Are there any 10,000RPM hard drives over 500gb?
Usually a top capacity high speed drive is not as large as a top capacity lower speed drive. It usually takes a while for the higher capacity drives to make it up to 10,000 RPM and faster. Just making a quick look... it seems that 300GB is the top capacity for a consumer 10,000 RPM drive and they seem to run about $500.