What is Hard Disk Drive Cache

The hard drive cache refers to a RAM memory area embedded in the hard drive. This memory is used as a holding place for frequently used bits of data. If the CPU finds the data it needs in the hard drive cache, it saves time because it can load that data directly into memory instead of asking the hard drive to fetch it from the disk. The bigger the hard drive cache, the more data it can hold, so the more likely the CPU is to find the data it needs, and thus the better the overall performance of the hard drive.

Access to data in the memory cache is much faster than accessing data on the platters in the hard drive. The larger the memory cache, the more data can be stored which can be accessed faster. A drive with 16 MB of cache will perform faster than a drive with 8 MB or 2 MB of cache because more data can be stored in the cache on the 16 MB cache drive.

Introduction to Hard Disk Drives