LauBen Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 Hello all, I am looking to get either 2x 500GB+ SATA2 HDD in RAID 0, or just one big 1TB drive. Now the question is which is better, this will be my gaming and general day to day rig so it will need to take that into account. I know that RAID 0 should provide me better performance, but I currently have 2 Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB set-up in RAID 0 and although they work I do have some poor HDD performance. I see it big time when I am encoding moves for DVD, so this is why I am thinking should I just byte the bullet and get 1 big drive such as the Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ. Any help would be welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supra Mike Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 What about the new SSDs? A 128GB ssd (pricey at the moment) set for your OS and apps should help right? I was thinking of doing that. Use an ssd for the os and apps and a 1.5tb for storage of "backup" media ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LauBen Posted April 6, 2009 Author Share Posted April 6, 2009 Sounds good but everything I have found on SSD is still saying they are slower then HDD. Not too sure how this can be, but still I have never seen a review which has filled me with confidence :D And not to mention the cost :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h3%5kr3w Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 SSD is slower at writing but faster at reading. That is the major tradeoff. Still if you go for one of the badboy SSD's it's going to be @ a minimum, but you will still notice it. I would say screw both and go with 2 WD velociraptors! 10000rpm Velociraptor - 300Gig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 Writing large files from movie encoding always takes a hit, even in a raid setup, but reading and normal operations speed up in a raid setup. Gaming should be improved in this scenario, although, if one drive fails, you lose all your data in this setup. Just be sure to have a separate backup of important data, and maintain it regularly. h3%5kr3w's got my vote, 10,000 RPM drives would be the way to go, but more importantly, max out your RAM as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LauBen Posted April 6, 2009 Author Share Posted April 6, 2009 Writing large files from movie encoding always takes a hit, even in a raid setup, but reading and normal operations speed up in a raid setup. Gaming should be improved in this scenario, although, if one drive fails, you lose all your data in this setup. Just be sure to have a separate backup of important data, and maintain it regularly. h3%5kr3w's got my vote, 10,000 RPM drives would be the way to go, but more importantly, max out your RAM as well. Thanks for the info, I know all about the pain of striped Vs mirrored and if I had the money I would be going for RAID 1+0 :) but I am not sure I can convince the wife I need 4x HDD :D As for the WD velociraptors I may have to look at the cost of those bad boys :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 1: Avoid RAID0 unless you happy with doubling the potential for failer. Use RAID10 instead or RAID50. For a scratch drive RAID0 is perfect however, for your OS drive, good, but for storage of data... avoid. 2: The Samsung 1TB drives have problems. 3: WD Black are as good as Veleciraptors, but 7.2K instead of 10K, so slower. Much better drives than the compertition. I use these and its got a noticable edge over the Hitachi's i replaced. 4: SSD's are still not as good as normal HDD's yet, they are more portable and read faster but they develop write issues after time and cost way to much (cheapo MLC ssd's are terrible). Give it a year or so and they will spank mechanical drives however. http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3531 for more info. 5: SAS 15K are lush. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h3%5kr3w Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 Well, if your not looking for bleeding nose type of performance, you could go with a wd green 1t drive. Does great for what I do. 2 = $199 before tax, free shipping right now on newegg, and only $9 more a peice if you want the wd blacks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 The blacks are worth the extra 9 bucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h3%5kr3w Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 Really? What's the difference? I figured one was more for performance, and one was more for power conservation (hence the 'green' drive). but looking @ the specs on the newegg site, they were identical so I was'nt sure. You never know except by experience these days weather something is truth or hype ya know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 Faster speeds, longer warrenty and dual processors. Greens are optimized for power consuption while blacks are optimized for performance. But both are good drives however. And hell, for $9 why not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LauBen Posted April 7, 2009 Author Share Posted April 7, 2009 Well I may need to look at the WD Black then. I have been able to find them in the UK from Scan for £58.98 that's for the 640GB ones, see the link below. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/640GB-Weste...-rpm-32MB-Cache Any other options or should I go for these? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h3%5kr3w Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 Access Time: 0 ms I call bullshit Though I do not know the access time for the drive, here is where you should go for the specs: WD Caciar Black 640 GB Sata oh, and here's some more spec. on that drive but I would personally say run with it. :D Performance Specifications Transfer Rates Buffer To Host (Serial ATA) 3 Gb/s (Max) Physical Specifications Formatted Capacity 640,135 MB Capacity 640 GB Interface SATA 3 Gb/s User Sectors Per Drive 1,250,263,728 Physical Dimensions English Height 1.028 Inches Length 5.787 Inches Width 4.00 Inches Weight 1.52 Pounds Metric Height 25.4 mm Length 147 mm Width 101.6 mm Weight 0.69 kg Environmental Specifications Shock Operating Shock (Read) 30G, 2 ms Non-operating Shock 300G, 2 ms Acoustics Idle Mode 25 dBA (average) Seek Mode 0 29 dBA (average) Seek Mode 3 26 dBA (average) Temperature (English) Operating 32° F to 140° F Non-operating -40° F to 158° F Temperature (Metric) Operating -0° C to 60° C Non-operating -40° C to 70° C Humidity Operating 5-95% RH non-condensing Non-operating 5-95% RH non-condensing Altitude (English) Operating -1,000 feet to 10,000 feet Non-operating -1,000 feet to 40,000 feet Altitude (Metric) Operating -305M to 3,050M Non-operating -305M to 12,200M Vibration Operating 0.004 g²/Hz (10 to 300 Hz) Non-operating 0.05 g²/Hz (10 to 300 Hz) Operating Linear 20-300 Hz, 0.75 G (0 to peak) Random 0.004 g²/Hz (10 to 300 Hz) Non-operating Low Frequency 0.05 g²/Hz (10 to 300 Hz) High Frequency 20-500 Hz, 4.0G (0 to peak) Electrical Specifications Current Requirements 12 VDC Read/Write 490 mA Idle 470 mA Standby 5 mA Sleep 5 mA 5 VDC Read/Write 500 mA Idle 420 mA Standby 160 mA Sleep 160 mA Power Dissipation Read/Write 8.3 Watts Idle 7.7 Watts Standby 1.00 Watts Sleep 1.00 Watts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 Physics would dictate around 8.3ms for a 3.5" HDD at 7200RPM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBP Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 When you say you have poor hdd performance what do you mean>? It doesnt write quick enough? It could realistically not be your hdd's at all but your cpu. What cpu are you running? What speed are you writing at? Maybe your expecting too much? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LauBen Posted April 7, 2009 Author Share Posted April 7, 2009 I have a Q6600 G0 I don't think it is my CPU. The issue I have is heavy HDD activity, when I am burning CD/DVD's also when I am transferring files from one partition to another. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MRGRIM Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 $9 for +2 years Warranty seems like a bargain! I used to use Maxtor drives a lot, cheap and reliable (from my experience), I am using WD more and more now, their Warranty service is second to none, especially the advance replace service. http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp#policy If you've got the money and want big ePenis points go for the raptors. I'm wanting to do the same, the only problems I have is my friends all play XBOX 360, so while I'm personally very smug they don't know WTH I'm on about and question why I dropped a load of $$$ on 2 300GB drives ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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