Hard drives 8mb vs 16mb - will I notice the difference?

[charlesr]

Samsung SpinPoint T133S 400GB SATA2 8MB 7200RPM ?88
Samsung SpinPoint T133S 400GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM ?100

Will I notice the difference in cache size? What does the cache size affect?

[gunrock]

I honestly doubt it. The jump from 2mb to 8mb caches was hardly noticeable, IMHO.

If you edit DV, or do a lot of transcoding to DivX, say, then perhaps it may be worth it, but 7200RPM drives are already easily fast enough to cope with standard resolution video. For WP, surfing or s/w developing, I wouldn't bother.