Help With Drive Selection

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lqrpig

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Jul 27, 2006
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I am having trouble deciding what drives to have in my new build. I was thinking a boot drive and at least one other for everything else. Since ordering food from a menu can turn into a hour long afair, for me, selecting drives is going to drive me nuts.

So im asking for some suggestions from all of you for single drives setups and Raid 0 and 1 setups.

Thank you in advance.
 
It's hard to suggest anything without some direction for what you have in mind. The 500GB Seagates are on sale just about everywhere right now for about $100 or less. I would buy from 2 to 4 of those and run RAID 0 or 5 or 10. But that's me.
 
Yeah sorry about that, the computer will be used mostly for gaming, some surfing and movie playback. But mostly gaming.
 
Any thoughts for what motherboard (what kind of RAID capability will it have) and what kind of capacity and price range drives you are looking for?
 
Motherboard: EVGA 780i SLI. Raid 0/1/0+1/5/JBOD

For capacity: Minimum of 500GB

Budget: Nothing to extreme. I would say $300 to $400. Possibly more if there is good reasoning for it.
 
Personally I tend to think that RAID 0 is rarely a good idea for single-user loads. Great theoretical speeds, but not really much help in real-world situations; it might shave off the odd second here and there not the kind of improvement you'd want for buying extra drives, unless you also need the capacity and don't care about increased failure chances. RAID 1 gives increased data security - although it's not a backup - but doesn't help with speed.

The new WD drives with 320GB platters look interesting to me, though I've not really seen much in the way of reviews. I might be inclined to go in that direction myself. Raptors are becoming of questionable value at the moment, since they have high spindle speeds but poor areal density by modern standards. I wonder how 320GB boot/apps and 640GB storage using these new WD drives would be?
 
Mithent, Im am thinking right along the same thing as you. Thanks for the input, now I know im heading in the right direction with my thought process.
 
Yes, the new WD drives with the 320GB platters do look good. I saw a review, wish I could remember where. The 640GB drive scored very well. Of course the Samsung F1 1TB drive is still the fastest single drive you can get, although a little pricey. The 640GB WD was very close though.
 
Harddrive speed means very little for gaming, minor, VERY minor benefits in loading times.

I like my gaming setup, Raptor for OS/application/gaming drive, other larger capacity for storage. Though I'm not totally happy with the noise the Raptor makes, I've become somewhat used to it.

Seagate 7200.11's are quite fast, I've also heard the Samsung F1 drives are pretty quick. WD makes good drives as well. *shrug*. Any modern 7200 drive should be plenty.

Theres a thread in hotdeals, 750GB drives for $129. I think they are the Samsung F1's. Seems right down your alley.
 
Without knowing your budget its hard to recommend drives.. if money isnt a factor I'd go with several raptors...

If you're somewhat on a budget and still looking for the best bang for the buck I'd probebly recommend the new WD6400AAKS - its becoming quiet the performance drive for a non raptor, and plenty of storage at 640GB. I picked one up and its noticably faster than my older samsung 500GB drives.

You might also look at the 1TB SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 drives - they're just huge and getting pretty favorable reviews (no personal experience).



WD6400AAKS $129 @ NE http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218
Samsung Spinpoint F1 $249 @ NE http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152102
 
whatuusay1 said:
Without knowing your budget its hard to recommend drives.. if money isnt a factor I'd go with several raptors...

If you're somewhat on a budget and still looking for the best bang for the buck I'd probebly recommend the new WD6400AAKS - its becoming quiet the performance drive for a non raptor, and plenty of storage at 640GB. I picked one up and its noticably faster than my older samsung 500GB drives.

You might also look at the 1TB SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 drives - they're just huge and getting pretty favorable reviews (no personal experience).



WD6400AAKS $129 @ NE http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218
Samsung Spinpoint F1 $249 @ NE http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152102
Click to expand...

Based on those prices, I would get 2 of the WDs and do RAID 0. If you don't want RAID, you could get 1 of the Samsungs. I would not bother with RAID 1. Thats is a waste of space unless you have a physical failure of 1 drive. But since you should be backing up anyway, you could be using another drive for backup instead, leaving you better off. In which case I would still do 2 of the WDs.
 
Thank you all for the suggestions. I think I will try out the WD 640's. Once again thank you for all the help.
 
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