Replace 74Gb Raptor for 750Gb Seagate?

[MrE]

As the title states, I'm wondering if the performance hit will be worth the storage capacity. I currently have the Raptor as my OS and applications volume, while my secondary disk is a WD 400Gb RE2 SATA drive for MP3s/Games/Patches/Backup. Plain and simple, I've run out of room on the Raptor.

I could just upgrade to a 150Gb Raptor, but I fear running into this issue again in the near future. I really don't want to get RAID involved, and I feel that going RAID1 using an on board software controller is not the way to go. Simple volumes work for me.Thought I'd just say screw it and go near but not all out (meaning no Hitachi 1Tb drive). Frys was having their weekend sale so I picked up the 750Gb. Just figured I'd get some input before I take the plunge. FYI, the Raptor has the 8Mb cache buffer. Anyways, off to bed. Thanks guys.

 

[slappynutz]

I have the exact same first-gen raptor 74GB, and I'm planning on ditching it for that Hitachi 1TB drive. It's just too noisy now that I've got a near-silent PC and performance-wise I doubt I'll be able to tell much of a difference between the two. My guess is it'd be about the same for the 750GB Seagate.

Just going to partition a 300GB area on the Hitachi to handle the inevitable OS reinstall.

 

[drizzt81]

I've run out of room on the Raptor.

I could just upgrade to a 150Gb Raptor, but I fear running into this issue again in the near future. I really don't want to get RAID involved, and I feel that going RAID1 using an on board software controller is not the way to go. Simple volumes work for me.

RAID-1 would not solve your capacity problem.

I am not sure what question you are asking. If you are running out of room on a 74GB HDD and fear that you will run out of room on a 150GB HDD quickly, then yes, I'd get a larger drive.

 

[unhappy_mage]

What about just adding the new disk rather than replacing the Raptor? Are you running out of case space or sata ports?

 

[MrE]

RAID-1 would not solve your capacity problem.

I am not sure what question you are asking. If you are running out of room on a 74GB HDD and fear that you will run out of room on a 150GB HDD quickly, then yes, I'd get a larger drive.

What I am looking at is a matter of capacity on the main OS/Applications drive. Using the Raptor for my OS drive is nice and speedy, but limited in what can be installed locally. I was worried that I'd lose performance going from a 10k spindle rate to a large capacity 7200rpm drive. Its a matter of trade offs with which I was hoping to hear opinions on.

Thanks for all input thus far. I picked up Acronis True Image and will image my OS drive some time this week.

 

[general]

"Just going to partition a 300GB area on the Hitachi to handle the inevitable OS reinstall."

300GB for your OS???

 

[Rix2357]

I'm going to guess that you are making pretty liberal use of your My Documents folder and Desktop to store stuff. You can do a registry edit or use Xteq's X-setup to modify the location of your My Documents folder. I did that for ease of backup and data safety. I know as long as I am vigilant about using my root drive only for installing applications, it never gets above 30GB of usage. You also want to check the settings of download utilities and maybe shift them over to your storage drive. Stuff on the desktop could be moved to the storage drive and a shortcut placed on the desktop itself.

 

[drizzt81]

What I am looking at is a matter of capacity on the main OS/Applications drive. Using the Raptor for my OS drive is nice and speedy, but limited in what can be installed locally. I was worried that I'd lose performance going from a 10k spindle rate to a large capacity 7200rpm drive. Its a matter of trade offs with which I was hoping to hear opinions on.

Why not add a second drive and install some programs there?

 

[MrE]

Why not add a second drive and install some programs there?

One of the side affects I've run into with Vista64 is that some 32bit applications not installed in their default path of C:\Program Files (x86) tend to randomly stop working. For example, when I installed Nero 7 to my D:\Program Files directory, Nero would randomly and unexpectedly quit. I un-installed and proceeded to install to the default path and no problems. And, I've run into a couple of games that have the exact same problem. They work fine under Windows XP being located on another drive. I've always had a separate drive for games installations, so its a bit annoying.

To avoid the program compatibility issues, I install to the defaulted directory path instead of waiting to find out if there are any side effects. Anyways, I think I've already argued enough with myself and have justified it. The worst thing that can happen is that I turn this 750Gb drive into another storage drive and go back to the Raptor for my OS.

 

[drizzt81]

Doesn't XP have some neat feature equivalent to symbolic links in Linux? You could create a junction point (that is what I have heard it being called) from c:\program files to the other drive.

I was not aware of this Vista problem, since I am still using XP. I do not know your cash flow situation or how opposed you are to more frequent upgrades, but I believe that the WD5000AAKS is a really nice bang-for-the-buck at ZipZoomFly right now. It costs $121 incl `cheap' shipping. The 750GB drive price should take a significantly larger hit later this year when the Hitachi 7k1000 is more widely available and when Seagate's own 1000GB model comes out.

 

[MrGuvernment]

I'm going to guess that you are making pretty liberal use of your My Documents folder and Desktop to store stuff. You can do a registry edit or use Xteq's X-setup to modify the location of your My Documents folder. I did that for ease of backup and data safety. I know as long as I am vigilant about using my root drive only for installing applications, it never gets above 30GB of usage. You also want to check the settings of download utilities and maybe shift them over to your storage drive. Stuff on the desktop could be moved to the storage drive and a shortcut placed on the desktop itself.

Or you can right click on My Documents / change location.


as said, keep your 74g as the main, 750 as a slave, move your Doc's folder to the 750g and dwnloads and files, hell, you can still run your programs off the 750 and raptor, everything DOESNT have to be on the same drive.