Help me figure out my storage solution ...

[Dulak]

Ok so atm I am running -

2 hitachi 250 sata II HDs: 1 as my OS (main program HD) and the other as a storage
1 IDE 250 gig maxtor (runs a bit hot) - storage
1 samsung 160 gig sata 1 drive - storage

I have a p150 case with 2 HD fans blowing on them (the fans are volt modded to a lower voltage so they run near silent but still cool decently).

I''ve run out of space ...

So what should my next hardrives be?

I cant really fit a 5th HD in mysystem - unless I set it up in the floppy bay (without cooling)

I dont plan on changing my OS drive atm ... too much hassle (have over a hundred programs on there I would have to reinstall).

Some of the HDs I have looked at are:

The hitachi 1TB drive and the new seagate 1TB drive - Looks like the hitachi is louder/more power hungrey and runs hotter - but looks like its faster. So not sure which one would be best to go with.
I could get one for now and get another as I run out of space again - I could replace my 250 maxtor or my 160 gig sata 1 and basically have another 750 gigs to fill up.

500 gig seagate or samsung spinpoint - much cheaper then going for a 1TB drive. I'm looking at 64pounds for a 500 gig drive compared to 192pounds for a 1TB hitachi so theoretically I could upgrade 3 of my drives to 500 drives for the same price as 1TB.
Not sure which is better the seagate or the samsung. I like the samsung spinpoint. I have their sata 1 drives and they are Very quite.

another hic-up is I'm not sure if I can get a 1TB seagate in the UK (although I could buy it from newegg and grab it when I come how for christmas ...)

comments?

[gigabyte1024]

the new WD green drives aren't as fast as some, but they run cool and quiet.
I'm considering one of these as a storage drive.

[PC_User]

Western Digital 750GB - WD7500AAKS

[Dulak]

thanks for the input ...

I looked at storagereviews article on the WD 750gig drive and they rate it as so-so
while tomshardware talks about it being a Awesome drive.

And I can almost get 2 750 gig drives as compared to 1TB drive.

well 115pounds compared to 192 (pretty close)

definately going to be picking up 1 or 2 of these babys.

btw looks like samsung is coming out with their version of the terabyte drive; I have a couple first generation sata 1 samsung spinpoints and I highly recommend them.
They are a Very quite drive (quiter then another I have owned yet). Decent speed also and no hick ups so far.

[teststrips]

you wouldn't have to re-install ANY programs if you replaced your system hard drive. You can copy your OS drive to a new drive through a process called Imaging. There are 30 or more programs that do this - a good free one is driveimagexml - http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

I don't know the age of your drives, but if they are getting near 3 years old, I'd start looking to replace them (if you leave your system on all the time) If your system is mostly turned off, 5 years is probably reasonable.

[PC_User]

The WD 750GB is by no means a "so-so" drive. Every review that I have read (with benchmark tests) has shown it to be the best and fastest 750GB currently on the markets.