HDD suggestions?

[cats_five]

Looks like my 1TB HDD has failed, so I reckon I'll be looking for a replacement.

The mobo is new so supports the faster SATA:

8 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors supporting up to 8 SATA 6Gb/s devices

So I'm looking for suggestions for a 1TB replacement. I want a quiet drive, and one that is made for durability if such a thing exists. And not over £100 either, unless there is a very good justification for a small amount over that.

 

[zakblood]

1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) HDD £83.99
1 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (0F10383) £68.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £65.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000524AS) HDD £56.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £56.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £51.95



any of the above would be fine tbh, but for me i'd grab a bigger one

1 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST3000DM001) HDD £113.99
1 x Toshiba (7K3000.D) 3TB SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA300) HDD £97.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £79.99

 

[cats_five]

Thanks, will do some ordering.

 

[cats_five]

Have ordered a 2GB Barracuda.

But this has got me thinking about getting a second one to mirror the first.

That leaves me wondering if I should create a mirror using the mobo stuff (it's a Gigabyte GA-F2A85XM-D3H) or in Windows. There are plenty of spare disk bays in the case and lots of SATA 6 ports on the mobo.

Views? I did find the following reasons for doing it via W7:

• Portability - A Windows array will survive if you have to replace / upgrade your motherboard; a chipset array will most likely not survive a mobo upgrade (because the mobo will probably be using a different hardware controller).
• Manageability - "Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions" is the Windows 7's GUI for managing your hard drives and volumes. It is much better than trying to use a seemingly out-dated text utility from the motherboard's chipset.
• No Performance Hit - A true RAID controller (a separate expansion card; normally expensive) will offer superior performance for any RAID array, but considering the options available to you now, both the mobo's chipset and Windows offload the array functions to the CPU, and any speed difference is negligible. See this video comparing a striped array setup through various ways.