Hard Drive 32MB or 64MB Cache?

1TB Hard Drive

I would go ahead and future proof it, in the long run the performance difference will be better but not on everything.

Here is a comparison chart to help you along with your decision, even though those drives are not in direct comparison you can make a decision

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2012/Desktop-Performance,Marque_fbrandx46,2930.html

I opted for 64MB drives and performance is very good. I don't know much about the 32MB models so I can't offer a comparison only that the 64's are great.

I think your Firewire 400 will be the bottleneck. The $30 is better invested in FW800 housing IMHO.

The extra cache will yield maybe 5% difference? Just check some hard drive benchmarks online (i.e. Toms Hardware Storage Charts).

Like the previous poster said, the main bottleneck however is your Firewire 400 interface.

It definitively is worth it. You are not talking about half seconds here, but for fluid working. It can be frustrating to just scroll the storyline and have a beach ball for seconds until the thumbnails are loaded. Over a day's work that accumulates lost time and frustration.

Firewire, doesn't matter if 400 or 800, is the weakest (slowest) link in your workflow.

IMO, spend the extra to get FW800 but don't spend extra to get the 64MB cache.


Lethal

I have two thoughts for you:

First, upgrading from 32MB to 64MB Cache is not really that relevant in speed for cutting movies. The Cache becomes interesting if you are accessing a certain amount of data (up to 32 or 64 MB) very frequently. This data can be stored in the Cache and accessed quicker than if you had to read it from disk. This is very advantageous if you are working with files or programs that are rather small, but it is not going to help you scroll though a video faster or building thumbnails, because video files are waaay to big to fit in a Cache. So while you will see an improvement for many workflows with a Cache upgrade, it won't help you much for your editing.

But on the other hand, waiting during editing will really annoy you. I know, a second doesn't sound very long, but if accumulated over a few hours, it might drive you crazy.
If you can afford an i7 iMac system, try to spring for the more expensive hard drive. It will probably save you many a frustrating day. You might even think about getting a completely new one, not in an exchangable external case. I have had very bad experience (concerning speed and reliability) with those, as neat as the upgrade-option might seem now.