Optimal Hard Drive Setup

Aelred89

Aelred89

Aelred89

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After much searching and reading i'm yet to find out the general consensus on the optimal hard drive setup. I want my new system to operate as fast as possible within my budget. My initial idea was a raptor 74GB for OS and games plus a WD Caviar 250GB for storage. But after reading and learning about perpendicular recording the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 seemed like the better choice.

My current thought is a 250GB + 500GB 7200.10 drives, 250GB for OS, Games and Apps, and the 500GB for storage. Does this sound like a better idea? Also is RAID actually needed? can two drives run independantly or is RAID 0 or 1 recommended?

Aelred89
 
RAID isn't needed, the drives will run quite happily on their own although RAID0 will give better transfer rates but with an increased risk of data loss. You would need 2 matched drives to run RAID0 though.

Having a 250Gb + a 500Gb isn't going to be slow though. The 7200.10 transfers data as fast as a 74Gb Raptor on average and if you were to put a 74Gb partition at the front of the Seagate the transfers from that partition would be about 10% faster than the Raptor. Sure the average seek time of the Seagate is a bit more than the Raptor but the bang for buck of the Seagate is much better.
 
the sustained transfer rate of the Seagate 7200.10 is better than the Raptor, but the seek time for Raptors is better. And seek time is more important when you want your games to load faster.

For Raid, most mobos nowadays have onboard Raid 0 and 1. But for Raid 5, you'll need a Raid controller card to do it.
 
Right then, so if i created a 74GB, or even 36GB, partition at the front of my 250GB for my OS then use the rest for apps and games it'll work quite nicely? I'll be using the 500GB soley for music, dvds and pictures so i'd probably sacrifice speed for the safety of the data :)
 
naro said:
...And seek time is more important when you want your games to load faster...
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If the game uses many smaller files. However, many games make use of larger, fewer data files that benefit more from better transfer rates over seek rates.
 
For what it's worth, I have two 320GB Seagate 7200.10 in my system. They were the best price/GB. On the first one I have a 50GB partition for Vista and apps with the remainder for games (mainly empty in fact). The 2nd drive is a single partition for music, video and photos.

I haven't looked at what Vista does with virtual memory... is there a benefit in telling it to use the 2nd drive rather than the first? Again, any benefit in banging a fast USB pen-drive in the back (I have 2GB RAM)?
 
i would imagine there is (re: the 2nd drive question). putting it on the second drive would give the virtual memory its own drive and sata channel to read and write to, freeing up the os on the first drive. I cant see it causing any harm, anyway.
 
rpstewart said:
RAID isn't needed, the drives will run quite happily on their own although RAID0 will give better transfer rates but with an increased risk of data loss. You would need 2 matched drives to run RAID0 though.
Click to expand...

I have two new 320gb drives and was going to raid0 them, why do you think there is an increased risk of data loss it makes me want to not raid them :(
 
From what i can make out, in RAID0 if one HD dies it takes the other one with it resulting in a whole lot of data being destroyed
 
Aelred89 said:
From what i can make out, in RAID0 if one HD dies it takes the other one with it resulting in a whole lot of data being destroyed
Click to expand...
Yes, that's the drawback of Raid 0.
 
Aelred89 said:
It's a bit of a bummer, so can any explain why someone would risk their data and use RAID0?
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Simple, it's bloomin' quick!

A single Seagate 7200.10 will return an average transfer rate of about 65-70Mb/s across the disk, a pair in RAID0 will give in excess of 120Mb/s.

If you understand the risks and have a decent backup strategy there's nothing inherently wrong with RAID0.

Aelred89 said:
From what i can make out, in RAID0 if one HD dies it takes the other one with it resulting in a whole lot of data being destroyed
Click to expand...
Yes and no, if one drive dies (or even just hiccups sometimes) all the data on the array is lost, the second drive itself will be fine but its contents will be unusable.
 
hmmm what a dilema lol Would it be possible to have two drives in RAID0, say 2 7200.10 250GB drives, plus a third drive by itself for backup for important docs and what not?
 
Just thought... are 2 250GB drives in RAID0 superior to one 500GB drive? say, 2 7200.10 in RAID0 versus WD Caviar 500GB 5000AAKS?
 
Aelred89 said:
Just thought... are 2 250GB drives in RAID0 superior to one 500GB drive? say, 2 7200.10 in RAID0 versus WD Caviar 500GB 5000AAKS?
Click to expand...
Get both - 2x250GB for use and 1x500GB for backup.
 
lol i wish it was that simple :P if i had the money i would, we shall see :) Birthday on wednesday... thats when my system comes to life hopefully (well allow a couple of days for delivery :P)
 
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