Need hard drive recommendation

[Bobo Balinski]

I would like to replace my old, small drives in my LanpartyUT nF4 Ultra-D

system.

 

So I am looking for something that is very stable and reliable for a RAID 0 array. I am planning on 2 SATA 300 drives.

 

I have checked the prices on 10000rpm drives but they seem quite expensive.

 

Should I put everything on the one array, or is it wise to add another drive for data?

 

Any thoughts and advise will be appreciated.

 

BBB

[UncleDavid218]

I, and many other members here, have been fully impressed with Seagate's 7200.10 series of hard drives.

 

They offer perpendicular recording, 16MB of cache, and a wide array of storage capacities.

 

The features in these hard drives mean that they come close to performaning as well as 10,000RPM drives but at a fraction of the cost.

 

You also cannot beat the industry leading 5 year warranty.

 

Linkage

[thejamesvolta]

I have the 7200.10 and it is awesome. I wish I had a second so I could RAID_0 it. I have never EVER had to defrag it because of perpendicular recording technology. I use my 300gb for all my media/photos/backups/software/music/ etc. All of my programs and OS go on the RAID. But yeah, Western Digital and Seagate are my two favorite brands. I'm sure you'll find a lot of others who agree.

 

Hard drives are getting cheap now. Newegg has a 7200.10 500gb SATAII 16mb for around $130-$140 right now. I would get at least one of those for your media drive, and like 2x WD or Seagate drives for your RAID (SATAII of course). That will get you the setup I think you're looking for.

[Bobo Balinski]

Thx for the replies, guys. You both seem to agree on the matter. I'll have to brush up on the perpendicular technology.

 

So maybe we should get 3: 2 for the RAID 0 and 1 for data as you have done, Jamesvolta.

 

I can't believe the size of disks now. I remember when 40 MB was huge.

 

BBB

[thejamesvolta]

The hard drive setup you just mentioned is what I would do. Have you setup a RAID before? This was my first RAID setup and I just dove into it head first without researching (seems i learn best that way). I didn't have a clue what size to make the stripe, let alone what a cluster is. Below, the link for the hard drive & benchmark thread will shed a lot of light on the topic.

 

Perpendicular Recording

Hard Drive Benchmark Section

[Bobo Balinski]

Thx for the links, tjv. This warrants sitting down and doing a little figuring.

 

I was trying to get in to Newegg's site but they've been having problems all evening.

 

Maybe tomorrow.

 

Thx again.

 

BBB

[thejamesvolta]

Not a problem. Let us know if you have more questions.

[hawkeyefan]

Just a couple thoughts here to add.

 

7200.10s are fine and all but right now the fastest sataII HDDs are the Hitachi T7k500. A possible issue with the Seagates is that they are made in three separate factories (Singapore,China,Thailand) and depending on which drive you get, it has the potential to be either loud or performance-limited by the new firmware. Seagate has no Acoustic management for their drives apart from what is set at the factory so there is no way to quiet a loud Barracuda down. All other drives have acoustic management.

 

If you want the quietest drives, go for either WD *AAKS models or the Samsung SpinPoint T or even better, SpinPoint S if you can find one yet. Both are good performers and quiet.

 

If you want to go totally crazy, the single fastest 7200 rpm sata drive on the market is the 1TB Hitachi T7k1000. It's HUGE and not cheap. It's essentially just as fast as the 150GB Raptor.

 

But imho RAID is quite frankly pointless unless you are running a file server or something. You are not going to see any real-world improvement in gaming, etc. on RAID 0 vs. a single fast sata drive. Slightly faster map load times and sexy HDTach scores and that's it. Lot of money to burn for no real performance benefit. You would benefit more from setting up one drive with OS/games/etc. and running simultaneous software off of a secondary drive (FRAPS, MBM5, etc.). Two heads are faster than essentially one.

 

This is also a really bad time to load up on drives. Whole new lines by each manufacturer are dropping either as we speak or in the very near future:

10k rpm sata drives from Seagate

Samsung SpinPoint S

Hitachi T7k1000 line (only 1TB model is available yet)

Seagate 7200.11 line

 

you would be better off picking up one or two 320GB Hitachis or Barracudas, no RAID, and wait for the faster drives to drop before throwing down hundreds of dollars.

[thejamesvolta]

hawkeye makes a good point. RAID will give you only SOME real world performance gain, but not much at all. You'll notice the difference when installing programs, loading games/maps, loading programs, and maybe playing native HDV. I just like to know my hard drives can perform when needed is all.

 

Another thing about RAID is you double your chances of a hard drive failure and data loss. Not that RAID is any harder on your discs, but that if you have two drives acting as one, you have doubled the chance that there will be a problem because hard drives fail, it's just a matter of time. Be sure to look through that HD benchmark link I posted above (too lazy to link it again). That will explain a lot.

 

@BBB...in the end, everyone's gonna have their favorite brand is what it comes down to. Just make sure it has decent specs....16mb cache, SATA_II, name brand, etc. If you just do a little bit of research, it'll pay off. Just get what works best for your situation