Budget build HDD- barracuda, WD blue or green?

claypigeon101 · 21 Mar 2012 at 15:48

Hi guys, I'm building a budget rig for my friend for everyday tasks, the only 'speciality' he needs to fulfil is secure storage of hundreds of music tracks because he is a party/function DJ.

Which of the below would you recommend for an everyday build as the OS drive, I was thinking WD Caviar Green because it's got a power saving function and that might be beneficial with it just being a general-use computer. Once they come back down in price later in the year I was going to suggest he gets a second 500G or 1TB drive for his music storage, then he has more security should he get a virus or something.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AZRX) **SINGLE PLATTER** £64.79
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £63.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £61.99

I know 1TB drives aren't a lot more expensive than 500GB but I would suggest to him to get a second drive for music storage once they come down in price, that's why I'm not suggesting to him to get a 1TB drive from the off.

The rest of the config is i3/H61/4GB DDR3/450w PSU
Which would you recommend?

claypigeon101 · 23 Mar 2012 at 02:40

lrlcr said:
Small SSD for OS and then a raid array for the music which will give the data security he requires.

that's a great idea but unfortunately my friend doesn't have the budget.
That's my next plan for my DAW/music system though

claypigeon101 · 23 Mar 2012 at 13:42

Essexraptor said:
I know you said the budget is tight but PLEASE try and set your mate up with some sort of external USB device (3.5" or even 2.5" portable) and a backup/rsync routine.

It's cool, he's got that going, he uses a 3.5 to transfer tracks from home to his work laptop so they're always floating around on more than one HDD at a time. Thanks for your advice!

claypigeon101 · 24 Mar 2012 at 14:56

Concorde Rules said:
RAID is not a backup solution, why do people keep recommending it?

I think because in RAID 1 config it duplicates to a second drive so it's almost a backup solution. That's what I will do with my Mac Pro system..when I get it..for my music production.. just to ensure everything is written twice.

And then backup both of those hard drives also