RAID 1 Harddrives

[R3N3G4D3]

I have a 500GB Seagate harddrive with 32MB buffer, at first I was considering buying another one of those to use in RAID1. However, recently lots of reviews have been popping up suggesting that this particular drive seems to have a high mortality rate. So far I've been lucky enough that mine works, but I am seriously considering getting a different hard drive model (and possibly manufacturer) of the same size. The funny thing is that even the 16MB version of the same HDD by Seagate seems to be receiving a lot more positive reviews than this one, which is surprising to me since I would assume they use identical mechanical components. The problem is all the other manufacturers I've seen only make 16MB versions, so I was wondering if by placing 2 hard drives in RAID with different buffer sizes I would be limiting both buffers to the size of the lower buffer? If it does indeed only use the lower buffers for both drives, I would feel ripped off since that would essentially slow down my current harddrive slightly, potentially negating the performance gain I get from RAID 1 setup (reading both drives at the same time).

[DMB2000uk]

I don't know for definite, but it would be the most likely option that it will only allow for the 16mb of cache as both drives don't have 32mb.

Dan