I Need Hard Drive Help

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WabeWalker

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I'm about to order a new i7 build.

Option A:
If I order a computer with the following hard drive, then it will delay my order by almost an entire week! 750GB - SATA-II, 3GB/S, 7200RPM, 16MB Cache


Option B:
So I looked for other options that would be roughly the same price, and this is all that I found. This option only costs ten dollars more, and it won't delay my order. 1TB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 500GB SATA-II, 7200 RPM HDDs)


Option C:
My only other option is this. Unlike the above configuration, which cost me only ten dollars more, this option will cost me one hundred dollars more. 1TB - SATA-II, 3GB/S, 7200RPM, 32MB Cache


Which option should I go for. Is option B going to be slower than options A and C. I have no idea what this raid 0 configuration even is. I suspect that it's two separate hard drives, possibly of inferior quality to the single units?

Strictly for gaming, this PC, by the way.
 
Well I'm guessing this is a prebuilt rig or something?

Anyway, we're going to need some specifics:
1) What model drive is that 750GB?
2) What model drive are those 500GB?
3) What model drive is that 1TB?

In other words, we need the model numbers of those hard drives. For all we know the 500GB could be the new WD Black drives while the 750GB is one of the slow Seagate 7200.10 750GB drive. So can't really help you until you tell us what model those drives are.

Oh and some info on RAID:
tiraides said:
What the hell is RAID? What is it good for? Why is it good? What does it do?

RAID stands for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive/Independent Disks (or some variant thereof), which integrates, via a RAID controller, two or more hard drives together for greater performance and/or data protection. There are many levels of RAID, with each level having its own strengths and weaknesses. Here are some explanations of RAID and its various levels. Please understand that RAID is NOT a backup solution.
Click to expand...
 
Okay, good points.

Thanks for the link, too.

I have no idea what manufacturer made the drives? It doesn't say at the website. This is from Dell Canada.
 
buy the computer with the worst hard drive they have and upgrade them on your own??

where are you getting this from? raid 0 is probably not a good idea.. especially on a cheap on-board raid controller.. it splits your data between 2 drives.. its faster, but if one drive has a problem your data is gone. if you keep your data somewhere else, then you are fine, in theory..

raid 0 means the data is split between 2 drives, if one fails your data is gone
raid 1 means that the drives are mirrored, if one drive fails, you have a copy of all data on the other drive

on board, and cheap raid cards are pretty much software based. so they use your cpu, memory, etc i have had good luck setting up servers that are only file servers with cheap raids, because they don't do anything else.. but i would really recommend it.

moral of the story.. build you own computer.. it will take longer and be more work.. but you will learn more, and you have a great resource here to ask questions and get help along the way..
 
Okay, thanks for the help.

I'll go with option B, since this is strictly a gaming computer I'm buying (I do all of my work on a MacBook Pro). If a drive fails on me (I've been working on computers since I bought my first 8088 back in 1984, by the way, and I've never had a hard drive fail on me) then I won't really lose anything, since I buy all my games and will have them on disk anyhow.

Again, thanks for the help - and not to be to antagonistic about this, but buying a pre-built computer has never been easier. The XPS 730X is a magnificent machine, which, in Canada, can't even be beaten if you were to price the components yourself at NewEgg.

Once you pay Federal and Provincial sales taxes, and after postage, and after the cost of purchasing VISTA (which I don't own), it turns out that you pay more than you would if you just bought from Dell. No real reason to build my own system. Dell, these days, is apparently putting quality parts into its systems. They don't make any money when people return their stuff. They hate it when their computers break down.

And besides, I love the case of the 730x. It'll look really cool in my home.
 
To each their own, but for many people, building their own systems gives them peace of mind and allows them to choose what they feel are the best components available.

If you have some semblance of a choice in the matter, try to get one of the Western Digital Caviar Black series or the later-released Seagate 7200.11 series. (Which means that you have to guess which specs the hard drive you're looking at have.)
 
How much would you save by ordering with no hard drive or the cheapest hdd option they have? You can pickup a good 1TB drive for $100 or a WD640AAKS (good, quick drive) for $70.
 
a lot of people mention that raid is risky because of hard drive failure, unless you mirror it then you can get your data back, but for a striped system vs a single hard drive the risk is the same except for the percentage anyway. if you have a single drive and it dies, you lose all your data the same as one of the 2 striped drives failing. unless your willing to pay to have data recovered which is sometimes possible or you can tinker with it yourself and maybe get lucky.

for gaming you might not always notice a difference between the two but usually when loading large maps you will see a difference other than that its hard to say where else it benefits or holds you back. im not a expert but this is my 3rd computer with raid and i like it.
 
WabeWalker said:
... If a drive fails on me ... then I won't really lose anything ...
Click to expand...

except time... and we all know, time is money.... blah blah blah. Have fun with your new system! You can always remove the RAID config if you want. I always reformat/image my Dells (at work) as soon as they come in. ;)
 
WabeWalker said:
Okay, thanks for the help.

I'll go with option B, since this is strictly a gaming computer I'm buying (I do all of my work on a MacBook Pro). If a drive fails on me (I've been working on computers since I bought my first 8088 back in 1984, by the way, and I've never had a hard drive fail on me) then I won't really lose anything, since I buy all my games and will have them on disk anyhow.

Again, thanks for the help - and not to be to antagonistic about this, but buying a pre-built computer has never been easier. The XPS 730X is a magnificent machine, which, in Canada, can't even be beaten if you were to price the components yourself at NewEgg.

Once you pay Federal and Provincial sales taxes, and after postage, and after the cost of purchasing VISTA (which I don't own), it turns out that you pay more than you would if you just bought from Dell. No real reason to build my own system. Dell, these days, is apparently putting quality parts into its systems. They don't make any money when people return their stuff. They hate it when their computers break down.

And besides, I love the case of the 730x. It'll look really cool in my home.
Click to expand...

i agree, buying a pre-built usually beats the price out of building yourself by a ton.. building your own computer went from a wise financial choice to a hobby.. you can get better shit and overclock if you build yourself, but it costs more than it used to...
 
ok.. build your new computer with raid-0 and back it up to an old computer, or nas or something once a week... then you will be fine.. you don't have to do a fill backup.. synctoy is actually pretty good, it will only back up shit that was changed, edited, created since the last time..

just food for thought...
 
scottatwittenberg said:
i agree, buying a pre-built usually beats the price out of building yourself by a ton.. building your own computer went from a wise financial choice to a hobby.. you can get better shit and overclock if you build yourself, but it costs more than it used to...
Click to expand...

You left out the "in Canada" part, which is crucial to your statement. ;)
 
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