Bobo Balinski Posted February 5, 2006 Posted February 5, 2006 We are putting our new system together and originally planned to use our old 40gb IDE drive until I can recover from the wallet shock of purchasing all of the goodies listed below. But now I am thinking I'll just sell my car or something and buy a nice HD system. I am looking for recommendations for both a non-RAID solution (assuming I do not get much for my car), and a RAID solution (assuming no one opens the hood and do not drive the car). Not knowing much about RAID, it seems that RAID 0 is the choice to get the OS operating fast, and RAID 1 is good for fault tolerance and diaster recovery for data files. What about seek time, latency, SATA 1 vs 2, 7200rpm vs 10000rpm, 8mb vs 16mb cache? Please advise. BBB Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest FZ1 Posted February 5, 2006 Posted February 5, 2006 I'd stay away from Maxtors as they have issues with NF4's. WD caviar's with a 16MB cache are nice Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest SuppA-SnipA Posted February 5, 2006 Posted February 5, 2006 ya, western digital is my way to go, (see my sig) and seagates dont hurt either, my xbox has an 80 gb seagate Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smoken Joe Posted February 5, 2006 Posted February 5, 2006 Hitachi is cheap and fast Segate is almost as fast and has a 5 year worrenty. The western digital is good but not all that much faster but significantly more expensive. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobo Balinski Posted February 6, 2006 Posted February 6, 2006 I appreciate all of your comments thus far. However I am still seeking out wisdom on RPM, cache, seek time, latency, and SATA 150 vs 300? BBB Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyMon Posted February 6, 2006 Posted February 6, 2006 Using RAID is a bad idea for data protection or backup. RAID level 1 (mirroring) is great for servers that need 100% uptime, letting you switch drives instantly in the event of a failure with the exact same data being served up. RAID 1 doesn't protect against many of the problems a home user or typical business user encounters. Corrupt data on one drive will be instantly written to the other drive. Overwrite an important file by mistake? It will be overwritten on the mirror drive. Virus or other malware screw up your system? It will be screwed up on the mirror drive, too. If your computer is stolen or damaged by water, etc., both drives will be gone and your programs and data lost. The best approach for most people is to buy three drives, one for the computer and two for backup that you put into external drive cases. Once a week, use Ghost or another backup program to image your system drive to the backup drive. Rotate the backup drives so one is stored offsite. Then you will be truly protected. You can do this with one external drive as well, but it would be more of a hassle to store it offsite. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
divided Posted February 6, 2006 Posted February 6, 2006 I appreciate all of your comments thus far. However I am still seeking out wisdom on RPM, cache, seek time, latency, and SATA 150 vs 300? BBB what were you wondering? the faster the rpm=faster drive, more cache=faster access, lower seek time=faster access, lower latency=faster access sata 300=faster than 150. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
black_dought Posted February 6, 2006 Posted February 6, 2006 Im placing these on Raid 0 soon http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?...N82E16822148040 And using this to catch all the excess http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?...N82E16822144140 But Yes, more RPM=fster but more often than not more expensive. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobo Balinski Posted February 7, 2006 Posted February 7, 2006 what were you wondering? the faster the rpm=faster drive, more cache=faster access, lower seek time=faster access, lower latency=faster access sata 300=faster than 150. Well, one would think that a 10000rpm SATA2 drive would be the way to go. But they are not on the market. So, should I get a SATA2 or a 10000rpm? The seek and latency times are better on the 10000rpm SATA1 than on a 7200rpm SATA2. So it seems like the data transfer rate (ie; SATA 1 vs 2) is somewhat inconsequential. Is that right? Does the SATA 2 3gb transfer rate prove important with massive data copying, as in doing a backup, but otherwise, is not important to running applications/games? Should Windows be put on a fast drive (10000rpm)? Do the games do better on a 10000rpm, or is does this only improve the initial loading of the game? I am starting to believe that the following is a smart config: 1. Windows goes on a pair of fast drives, RAID 0 (10000rpm), doesn't need to be large. The RAID 0 with 2 drives will nearly double the speed to the operating system. 2. Data, apps, and games go on a SATA2 7200rpm drive. 3. Get an external drive to back up the data. BBB Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lowboy Posted February 7, 2006 Posted February 7, 2006 But 3cheaper7200rpm drive in raid0 would be better than 2 raptors. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
black_dought Posted February 7, 2006 Posted February 7, 2006 But 3cheaper7200rpm drive in raid0 would be better than 2 raptors. Really? lowboy, how would you place 3 in Raid0 with my board? just the same way or would you actually need4? If this is so...nice. THanks in advance, Marcus Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smoken Joe Posted February 7, 2006 Posted February 7, 2006 3 work too though it is a little overkill and the drives performance is more than the simple numbers though sustained transfer rate is an inportant measure for most. 2 in raid 0 with one drive for backup or backup on another computer is ideal thogh 3 in raid 0 would not be bad either though it might get a little noisy. The hitachi is probibily the best bang for the buck with the Seagate a close second. you can go to storage review for more info. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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