Thus, the disk drive cache is emptied by the interface much faster than it is filled by the disk. Larger cache segments available with the 4 MB cache allow for more time to be spent transferring data and less time spent in SCSI arbitration, improving overall performance. The answer is simple. Thus, there are performance advantages gained by implementing an on-disk cache. O time can directly increase the performance of the entire server.
Response times can improve, and more users can be supported.
Both of these characteristics improve performance. These are not the only Ultrastar drives with large cache. The Ultrastar 18ES offers 2 MB cache as a standard feature. Its performance also will be enhanced by a large buffer size. A study conducted by the Interactive Media Technology Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology in September 1998 reported that the extra cache in Ultrastar drives seemed to help level out the server performance across all data rate and client load tests.