New Build - Ideal HDD setup

sansnom

sansnom

sansnom

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Hi

I'm putting together a new build and in the process of researching what would be the best harddrive(s) solution and I think I need a little help.

First and foremost, this is a silent build so I want something that won't whine, make a high pitched noise or any other noise. This really does need to be silent. I don't mind paying a lot more for better quality even twice or three times standard price. To me the silence and the quality is worth the cost.

So what do I plan to do?

Well the system is for gaming and casual browsing. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to turn into a home entertainment system (hook it up to TV etc).

So I was thinking of the following scenarios:

Scenario 1 - something fast like a Raptor 36gb for windows and windows apps, another Raptor 36gb for games. I don't know anything about RAID or linking up drives but I assume there's a way to link them both or maybe i'll just keep them as separate drives.

Scenario 2 - 1x Raptor 150gb and just partition it for windows partition, games partition, file storage etc.

Scenario 3 - 1x Raptor 36gb or 74gb for windows and other windows apps and 1x some other SATA drive for everything else.

Scenario 4 - 1x or 2x a good SCSI drive.

These scenarios are not set in stone, I'm completely open to any other combination / suggestion. I just don't know a whole lot about this so I'm trying to provide some ideas myself. If they're crap feel free to point it out.

Now the thing is I'm pedantic about performance. I can't stand that sluggish feel you get when your drive has tons of stuff installed, downloaded etc and windows starts to boot slower, things open slower etc. So I usually keep my drive streamlined.

I have the bear minimum installed in terms of apps (windows, ms office, etc) and only usually 2 or 3 games which I play regularly. In the past I've always had just a single drive partitioned into bits for windows, games, downloads etc.

But it's a noisey WD drive and it's slow and crap so this time I figured I'd spare no expense and get the ideal setup.

Thanks
 
Last edited:
sansnom said:
First and foremost, this is a silent build so I want something that won't whine, make a high pitched noise or any other noise.
Click to expand...


Silent build with raptors....riiiiigghhhht.

Best bet is to go with 2 WD AAKS drives and RAID 0 them, that would be a lot quieter I would have thought.
 
guys thanks but it's not really helpful to me if I get comments that just say "raptors are good performance" or "loud" cause that's obvious from any review.

Equally "Buy any samsung HDD" is not really going on much. I need some objective things to go on. Comparative noise levels, types of noise produced by each HDD, relative noise (is raptor that much louder than an ordrinary 7200rpm sata, is the performance increase worth the extra noise?). even type of drive (SATA vs SATA II vs SCSI?).

Or what about taking two or three slower drives like maybe a 5400rpm and RAID'ing them as a single one? I mean I don't know but that's why I'm coming here for some help - is this stuff even feasible?

Assuming all of this isn't - is there a single definitive, widely held view, supported by numbers or not, of one drive which stands above the others. I don't care if it's expensive, overpriced or whatever, but is there one that is hands down 'the best' you can get in that category for all round performance, quality, reliability and noise? I think 2 years back or so this was the Samsung Spinpoint but I got a chance to experience one and wasn't really that impressed, it made about as much noise as my WD Caviar 120gb does.

Thanks
 
ok if price noise and capacity are not a factor the the fastest single drive is the

raptor 150gb.

IF how ever you dont mind a very very small performance drop then the 750gb waaks sata2 drive from western digital is the best drive out at the moment. toms hardware recently got rid of there raptor drives for these. they are cheaper 5 times as big and meet the same performance levels excpet for seek times times wich the raptor wins on due to 10000 spindle speed..

there are some new samsung drives the 72000.11 range wich are ment to be awesome and there is achance that 1 of them coudl equal or better the performance of the waaks 750gb from western digi, i dont think a direct comparison ahas been done yet thouhg and the only one out is 1terrabyte the 500gb version is on preorder.

so in my opinion the 750gb waaks drive is the one to go for if you need a drive now. if you cant wait a lil while wait for a comparison between that and *** new seagtes when they are out.

tomshwardware.com ha sa review of the aaks drives
 
Hi
Raid is probably a waste of time. You wont see much improvement. I have 2X 150gb raptors in an antec P182 case. Very quiet.Very quick. Reasonably cheap.
 
If you want absolute silence and you are serious that money is no object, then get a samsung solid state drive.

They are available at OcUK:

16Gb HD-044-SA £133.99
32Gb HD-043-SA £244.99
64Gb HD-047-SA £482.99

I told you they weren't cheap, but you can't any quieter than silent (yet), and boy are they faaaaasst!
 
If I could afford it, I'd go for a SCSI RAID 0, with as much onboard cache as possible.

Let's see that be beaten. :p
 
Sansnom, i'm in the same boat as you dude. I'm looking to buy a new rig and i never looked into how a hard drive can make a difference when loading a large file or a game.

My new rig will be primaraily be for games but i dont know like yourself if its worth going for a rapture or 2 hard drives and raid them...
 
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