Hard Drive recommendations/advice

[Nexus18]

Hey. I am looking for a new hard drive on which my operating system will be based. My current hard drive is coming up to 5 years of age and I want to get a new drive before this current one decides to bite the dust and lose my data/ operating system in the process.

I'm currently trying to research hard drives and I'm torn between purchasing a hdd or should I switch to ssd technology. I'm aware that the latter promises much greater potential than the former, but the technology is still in its early development i.e. it is a bit pricey, and sizes aren't great.

The objective is for the new drive to contain the operating system and programs, it is not for storage purposes of any media related files or games, I have another drive for that

My budget is fairly tight, so I couldn't purchase any big capacity ssd's or sas hard drives even if I wanted to.

I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on the matter: hdd or ssd; and what model would you recommend?

 

[master811]

If your budget is pretty tight, then a decent sized SSD might be too expensive for you. Don't bother with really cheap SSDs as the performance can often be worse than normal HDDs due to poor controllers.

Really the cheapest HDDs go for about £35 ish and you will get around 320GB for that. Don't bother going any smaller as the price difference isn't worth it. Any new model will probably be good enough, and make really comes down to personal preference. Unless you really need the performance benefits of an SSD, a normal HDD (or 2 in Raid) would probably be better for now.

 

[Nexus18]

Thanks for the reply. I don't think i will get a SSD yet as the prices are a bit too much and i would like to have at least 120Gb of memory for my main drive. Plus the prices will reduce with in a few years for the better SSD's. My budget is around £50. I am going to be installing windows 7 RC. I have heard that the smaller drives e.g. the 74Gb - 160Gb range are better for your primary drive which will only hold my OS and programs than having a a large drive e.g. 750Gb - 1Tb.

 

[steveinspain]

I too am interested in this.
I want to have a seperate hard drive for my os and programs, and already have a new 160gb western Digital waiting to be used, but the idea of something fast really appeals, but as mentioned above,it is a new technology.
What is a decent SSD - everyone says 30gb is big enough, but what are the best ones to choose from, and are prices really likely to drop a significant amount over the next 6 months making it a bettr idea to use my 160gb WD for now ?
Will they change much over the next few months ?
My biggest problem is that my OS is currently on a 1tb drive that is full, so booting up takes several minutes but as I am soon to do a rebuild and replace a few parts I am loath to start changing things till then, but want to get it right when I do.
Finally, will a SSD make much difference to normal use of a pc - I know that start-up will be faster, but in general use, am I right in guessing that it will make programs open faster, but is it really lots faster ?

 

[remy87]

320gb gets my vote you will probably get 90-100mb/s out of a single HDD
up you budget a bit get another one for sub 60? and raid them and it will read faster than a cheap/mid "single SSD" (not sure about highrange).
SSD will have a lot faster access time though.