HDD upgrade question

[Fistandantilis]

I am looking to upgrade my HDD drive in my machine, I really want to go with a raptor but I am wondering, would it be better to get 2 of the 74 gig raptors and set up a RAID 0 OR get 1 of the 150 gig raptors?

**EDIT**

One of these

OR

2 of these

Thanks

 

[DougLite]

A) Don't buy the drives on Newegg, you'll be sorry. Get em from ZZF.

B) The 150GB Raptor will blow away the 74GB 8MB Raptor, RAID-0 or not. This is especially true in seek heavy scenarios like game level loading where RAID-0 shows little to no gains.

C) Have you considered the 74GB Raptor with a 16MB buffer? Clicky

 

[DangerIsGo]

A) Don't buy the drives on Newegg, you'll be sorry.

Why do you say that? What dont you like about newegg? Is it becuase you think they package HDD's improperly (or so Ive heard...I do most of my business now with ZZF becuause I live in jersey....)

 

[DougLite]

Newegg's packaging kills hard drives, pure and simple.

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1027963694&postcount=55
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=957977&highlight=Newegg+packaging
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=994271&page=1&highlight=Newegg+packaging
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1061437&page=1&highlight=Newegg+packaging
http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1028521740&postcount=12

Bubble wrap is precisely the problem. It does not protect the drive from shock as well as a foam shell like ZZF uses or molded plastic inserts like WD uses in their RMA shipments. Don't believe me? Hitachi will reject an RMA if a drive is shipped in bubble wrap - proof here:

Do not use bubble wrap, Styrofoam peanuts, paper, padded shipping envelopes or non-approved plastic or Styrofoam clamshell containers.

WD doesn't specifically address bubble wrap, but they do address peanuts here:

DO NOT USE peanuts or flowables as they will not support the drive in all directions during shipping.

How about Seagate? They think Newegg is wrong too, as written here:

DO NOT USE foam packing pellets, bubble wrap, or newspaper.

Just for kicks, I went ahead and dug up Maxtor's shipping guidlelines, here:

DO NOT use Styrofoam peanuts or bubble wrap.

Maxtor even went to the trouble of bolding it. You get the picture yet? Newegg does not ship hard drives properly. Their methods do not adequately protect drives from shock and damage in shipping. After my third DOA drive from Newegg, I switched to ZZF. ZZF has still not sent me a DOA drive, despite that I've ordered more drives from them than Newegg. I don't think I need to go to the trouble of looking up Samsung's policy, given that 4/5 of the major consumer drive makers have pretty clearly condemned Newegg's hard drive shipping methods. When shipping hard disks, you should pack it so that the drive and box move as one unit, and have enough packing material around the drive to make it resistant to puncturing and crushing. Newegg totally misses the mark on the first goal, as the peanuts allow the drive to slide around. This movement is unnecessary and can be quite damaging

 

[DangerIsGo]

Ew, looks like I missed a lot since I heard that one guy complain about neweggs packaging HDDs. I got my last 3 HDDs from ZZF and before that, my Maxtor 250GB and WD 160GB from NE with no problems, but I think at the time, i also got other things, so other items were in the box as well. DIdnt realize how much it sucked. I still keep the foam things from ZZF for at first, i thought they were cool, now Ill keep them in case I have to RMA (and I still think they're cool )

 

[Fistandantilis]

A) Don't buy the drives on Newegg, you'll be sorry. Get em from ZZF.

B) The 150GB Raptor will blow away the 74GB 8MB Raptor, RAID-0 or not. This is especially true in seek heavy scenarios like game level loading where RAID-0 shows little to no gains.

C) Have you considered the 74GB Raptor with a 16MB buffer? Clicky

Thanks, I will see what ZZF has.