Need help deciding new HDD setup - should I return my VR?

ps3ud0

ps3ud0

ps3ud0

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Ahhhh Im so bad at making decisions :o...

Got a 300Gb Velociraptor coming tomorrow and after reading regards getting a second larger drive Ive come to realise that maybe getting the VR wasnt the best idea. RAID 0 just makes sense as it gives the same performance for a lot cheaper (or for me) a lot better performance for the same price...

So Im trying to decide what of these setups is best:

1) Keep the 300Gb WD VR for os/games and get a 1Tb WD Caviar Black for media/data as I originally planned. 1.3Tb for about £300.
2) Return the VR and replace it with 3x320Gb WD RE3s for everything. 0.9Tb for about £145
3) Return the VR and replace it with 2x250Gb WD RE3s for os/games (short stroked 320Gb platters) and get a 1Tb WD Caviar Black for media/data. 1.5Tb for about £185
4) Return the VR and replace it with either 2x 1Tb WD Caviar Black for everything or 2x 1Tb WD RE3s (dont know if I can find stock though :/). 2Tbs for £200-£270.

Actually option 3 sounds like a good idea. Performance of the RAID 0 should easily outdo the VR and because they are short-stroked I get additionally benefits (are they still definitely short-stroked?)...

What do you think - obviously open to other options - but ultimately looking to have a fast (but quietish) setup until its worth me replacing the os/games section with a SSD (which I cant see happening until 2010). Something around 1Tb is ideal and spending only £200 would be a bonus...

I know some might say get some Samsung F1s but the reliability issues is definitely putting me off, even though they are so cheap. And shuush about SAS - I cant afford the controllers...

Definitely need to buy tonight as I want to take opportunity of the 6% discount...

P.S. Anyone felt the real-world difference between having 3 RAID 0 drives instead of 2?

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
I know - its terrible :p. Thats my fault for reading after my purchase :rolleyes:...

I always promised myself Id never do RAID again just for performance - lasted 5 years at least. Just glad decent SSDs arent out yet in the sizes I want...

Ive pretty much decided to go for option 3 - just does everything I want and under the cost of a VR. It also means that the RE3s can be whacked into a second system when large SSDs do turn up (though I suspect 250Gb drives wont get much faster as I doubt theyll waste 500Gb platters on them...).

Shame, Ive had every different Raptor previously and Ive always found them to do exactly what they say on the tin. If I had £400 to burn Id get 2 in RAID 0 like you :p

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
I just had to wipe my computer due to a virus that no antivirus i tried could get rid of and decided to put my main Seagate 500GB SATA 16mb cache hard disk in raid with a spare identical drive i had lying around. The speed improvement is ridiculous. I only expected a slight increase. The speed in xp pro is awesome (in vista too I should imagine), I will probably install vista later on to see how much the score has gone up by. If I were you I'd buy 2 of these:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache (newer model then mine)

and put them in RAID 0 (stripe) array. 1TB storage for £90! Can't be too bad!
 
Well Im gonna use the 500Gb AAKS for backup, though Ill probably get one of those GP drives into an enclosure and use that if I run out of space...

500Gb for boot/os/apps/games hopefully will be plenty and mean I leave it pretty empty so it doesnt get bogged down - just going to partition it into 3 drives - one FAT/FAT32 to support flashing and the like (500Mb); one NTFS for the pagefile (means it wont fragment as much, though I will leave it dynamic - probably 2-4Gb) and the remainder will be working space...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
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