Hard drives for a future Core i7 system

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cosmod

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Hello, I plan to be an early adopter of the Core i7 system, as my current system is a AMD 3500+. This means I have been off of hardware forums since early 2005 and am now studying components again. I have been putting together a mental list of parts, and I would like some help with the storage situation.

I use my computers mainly for gaming and media, and I have adopted a storage solution that has worked for me so far. A small, fast boot drive for windows/programs, a large, fast drive for games, and a large, best-GB-for-the-buck drive for media. With this in mind, I am targetting the following drives:

Boot Drive:
The gaming drive on my current system is an old WD740GD 74GB Raptor. Is this drive still pretty decent in terms of performance? Would it be too small for Vista x64 and various programs (adobe cs2, etc.)? Any recommendations?

Gaming Drive:
Probably a 300GB VelociRaptor, but I am hesitant to pay ~$275 dollars for a hard drive. I know it's one of the fastest drives out there, but I personally don't have anything to reference the performance against.

Media Drive:
WD6400AAKS probably; whatever is big, reliable, and cheap.

Obviously I am a Western Digital fan, but that's only because none of them have died on me yet. And of course, I am at least a month away from putting this all together; I'm just excited about the prospect of playing Warhammer Online without needing to restart my computer every 3 hours.

Thanks for the help,
cosmod
 
2 VR300's or 2 VR150's in RAID0 for OS and Games, WD6400AAKS for media/backups.

It's friggin' GREAT, course I'm a little biased.

To prove a point, and not to get into another RAID0 shitstorm, but I have that setup in my main box on an ICH9R. In my 2nd box I just installed a single VR300 on an ICH9R and the difference between the RAID0 and single is pretty substantial. I kept thinking "what is wrong?" but I remembered it's only a single drive and HDTune proves that all is well. If you can swing it, go RAID0 man. Once most have tried it, they don't go back.
 
The old Raptors aren't really that great in terms of performance any more. Drives like the WD6400AAKS have caught up if not bested them for transfer speed, and are close to them in access times.

I think you're best with a 300GB VelociRaptor for your OS, programs and games. IMO there's no need to have separate boot and gaming drives. There's also a 150GB VelociRaptor if you think that would be enough capacity for you (may well be, really just depends how many programs and games you have installed at once).

For storage, the WD6400AAKS is a strong contender, and dirt cheap. The 1TB drives are getting ever cheaper, and most have similar performance to the WD6400AAKS. I don't really buy that any of the major manufacturers are any more reliable than the others. Be very wary of all the anecdotal "evidence" thrown around here and particularly in NewEgg reviews and the like. Seagate does offer a 5 year warranty which is nice, but I don't think that correlates with any decreased failure rate.
Bottom line: buy whatever's cheapest for the amount of storage you need. Performance isn't really an issue if you're just keeping videos, etc on it (although you get pretty good performance anyways, thanks to the density of these drives). The one drive you may want to look at is the WD GreenPower 1TB. It's slower than the others, and is geared to lower energy usage, which also happens to translate to lower noise. The price differential is miniscule, so if you're just looking for something to store your media on, it's a pretty strong choice, and may save you a few dollars a year in electricity.

As for RAID0, it has some advantages, but I don't think it's worth it for your purposes, especially given the additional cost of a 2nd VelociRaptor (if you go that route). RAID0 mostly boosts transfer speeds, which is great if you're doing things like video editing, anything with lots of large sequential transfers.
For general gaming use, it's not always very cost effective. Most of the speed gains are in transfer speed, the access time gains are marginal at best (sometimes slower), which means that snappy loading of programs and levels won't always be improved. Do you get some performance gains? Yes, but they're minimal, and you can get much better performance gains by spending the $300 elsewhere.
 
OP, I upgraded my quad core box's hard drives about a month ago. Since you're a WD fan, you would remember the 360GD drives. I was running 4 of them in a R0 array. A month ago, I upgraded to only 2 of the 1500HLFS drives (VR150)... and they are really nice - the 2 of them are basically equivalent in terms of STR and random access times with the 4 older 360GDs. The VR150 $/GB is not quite as good as the VR 300, but if you just need to save some cash... they're just as fast for about $100 less each.

The 6400AAKS is in my htpc and it is fast, cheap storage. I and most others here would recommend you pick that up in a heartbeat.

So, yeah... HLFS or GLFS + 6400AAKS = win.
 
In general I'd say just get a couple of 6400AAKS's and call it good. The Velociraptor is faster, but way too expensive for the extra speed, unless you just have to have the fastest thing available. Get the 6400AAKS and spend the difference on a better videocard, or more memory.
 
Forceman said:
In general I'd say just get a couple of 6400AAKS's and call it good. The Velociraptor is faster, but way too expensive for the extra speed, unless you just have to have the fastest thing available. Get the 6400AAKS and spend the difference on a better videocard, or more memory.
Click to expand...

I disagree, hard drives are the only part in a PC that are mechanical and therefor are a huge bottleneck. Also, an OS hard drive is more of a pain to upgrade than a video card once you get things set up. I vote for a VR for OS.
 
Some good diverse opinions here for OP to consider.
One other thing to look into since you're new back on the scene is SSD.
I recommend this since you are aiming for i7 and obviously are going to drop a big chunk of change on mobo and processor to be an early adopter on that technology. SSDs are definitely worth a look for low energy use, low heat, dead silent, very fast read xfers, and durability. My hope is the cost will drop enough by the time I build my next box - I want to use SSD for OS boot drive.
 
FYI: You can get 300GB WD Velociraptor from ebay for less with the current 30% off through live.com. I just picked up one for $190 + $20 shipping so I am getting 30% off the 190 making the total amount $153.
 
Forceman said:
In general I'd say just get a couple of 6400AAKS's and call it good. The Velociraptor is faster, but way too expensive for the extra speed, unless you just have to have the fastest thing available. Get the 6400AAKS and spend the difference on a better videocard, or more memory.
Click to expand...

IMO it really depends what kind of speed we're talking about. For sequential transfer rates, the VelociRaptor's advantage isn't huge, and may not be worth the money for some. But when we look at access times, which really make the difference in terms of "snappy" program loads and multitasking (i.e. the bulk of what you spend your computing time waiting for), the VR blows the 6400AAKS away. Really makes a huge difference in many things. If getting the fastest sustained transfer speeds was paramount, then it's way more cost effective to RAID0 two or three 640s or 1TBs, but that's only going to make a difference if you're routinely moving around mutli-gigabyte files, i.e. video work, etc.
 
The Hunter said:
IMO it really depends what kind of speed we're talking about. For sequential transfer rates, the VelociRaptor's advantage isn't huge, and may not be worth the money for some. But when we look at access times, which really make the difference in terms of "snappy" program loads and multitasking (i.e. the bulk of what you spend your computing time waiting for), the VR blows the 6400AAKS away. Really makes a huge difference in many things. If getting the fastest sustained transfer speeds was paramount, then it's way more cost effective to RAID0 two or three 640s or 1TBs, but that's only going to make a difference if you're routinely moving around mutli-gigabyte files, i.e. video work, etc.
Click to expand...

How much faster is a VR over a 640 AAKS in loading games/levels? This is a question I would love to see answered. I;m not talking benchies, I mean real world.

IE: I load a warhead level in lets say 20secs (as an example ) and the VR does it in what? 18? 17? 15? What? Anyone?
 
Savoy said:
How much faster is a VR over a 640 AAKS in loading games/levels? This is a question I would love to see answered. I;m not talking benchies, I mean real world.

IE: I load a warhead level in lets say 20secs (as an example ) and the VR does it in what? 18? 17? 15? What? Anyone?
Click to expand...

If you want game leve lloading times to decrease substantially, go RAID0. Period. There is no other way to make this big of a performance difference without going RAID0. You may gain 2-3 seconds from a WD6400AAKS to a VR300... maybe. However, if you RAID0 either one of those drives, you'll see massive gains. Now RAID0 2 or more VR300's? SICK. That's what I did and I'm thinking of getting a 3rd to add to the array.

The difference with the VR's, as mentioned, is access times. The overall experience will feel much snappier with a VR because of the low access times.
 
Brahmzy said:
If you want game leve lloading times to decrease substantially, go RAID0. Period. There is no other way to make this big of a performance difference without going RAID0. You may gain 2-3 seconds from a WD6400AAKS to a VR300... maybe. However, if you RAID0 either one of those drives, you'll see massive gains. Now RAID0 2 or more VR300's? SICK. That's what I did and I'm thinking of getting a 3rd to add to the array.

The difference with the VR's, as mentioned, is access times. The overall experience will feel much snappier with a VR because of the low access times.
Click to expand...

I have run raid 0 in the past and yes it made a difference but nit difference enough to warrant the added potential problems of losing one of the drives and having the whole array shot.

See the reason I'm asking these questions is because I'm pretty much over the whole Buying top speed/top expense drive and raid 0 crap. I find the added expense/potential for headaches way way outweighs the small speed gains. Yes, small. To me, personally, Even if I can shave 7 secs(which is a lot and cost a ton too do) making a 30 sec load become 23 secs, I will live with waiting the extra 7 secs.
As far snappiness, ya, it helps in that area. Once again hardly worth the added expense. Not to mention I'm pretty sure superfetch helps more than a drive with 1 sec faster access time.

I just wanted to make sure I wasn't way off in my thinking.

Now some of the new ssd's sound promising. That's something that may be worth a little extra money down the road.


Basicly what I'm saying is 2 wd 640 aaks drives 140.00 (lets say raid 0) vs 2 wd VR 300gig 600.00?(raid 0)
The real world difference? The VR's are a little faster no doubt but for all that extra money the small speedoost can't be justified.
 
I've never paid $300 for a VR300.

I just bought a 3rd VR300 to add into my RAID0 array 2 minutes ago. $215ish shipped on eBay brand new. To me, the difference is worth it. It's simply subjective. Not worth it to most, worth it to me.

I back my stuff up, so I'm always prepared for a failure, although I've never seen one in 8+ years of using RAID0...

Your're asking about performance and mentioned SSD's... so expect some posts on RAID0'd VR's. All subjective. One man's trash is another's treasure, vice-versa.
 
I've never paid $300 for a VR300.

I just bought a 3rd VR300 to add into my RAID0 array 2 minutes ago. $215ish shipped on eBay brand new. To me, the difference is worth it. It's simply subjective. Not worth it to most, worth it to me.

I back my stuff up, so I'm always prepared for a failure, although I've never seen one in 8+ years of using RAID0...

Your're asking about performance and mentioned SSD's... so expect some posts on RAID0'd VR's. Lots of enthusiasts on here with that setup. All subjective. One man's trash is another's treasure, vice-versa.
 
It's all good dude. I understand the whole gotta have the best mentality. I'm notnhating on you. :) I respect what your saying. It's just for me I won't spend that kind of money on harddrives for minimal gains anymore. Now if you said to me for 300gigs and 215.00 I can get a very fast ssd. I'd be all over that. Hell I might be all over it zt nearly 400.00.
 
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