SATA HDs for new RAID setup - which ones?

chrismox · 11 Feb 2006 at 13:12

I'm building a new PC and the only bits I'm left to decide over ar the hard drives.

I'll be looking to get 2 x 250GB SATA-II drives to run in RAID 0 and was hoping you could help me decide between these options:

Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD) - £75.49
Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA) - £72.79
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 NCQ 250GB ST3250824AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-058-SE) - £77.49

I know the Samsungs are supposed to be relatively quiet and this is a high priority for me, although the blurb on OcUK's description of the Western Digital seems to suggest they're pretty quiet too.

Anyone got any strong views on choosing between these 3?

Many thanks.

smids · 11 Feb 2006 at 13:28

Hitachi? One of the fastest 7200rpm drives. If not, then I'd say seagate or WD. I like the 16MB cache on the WD which would give you 32MB cache :eek:

.

chrismox · 11 Feb 2006 at 13:30

32mb indeed!

Interesting that you've recommended all of them except the Samsung which was previously my first choice

chrismox · 11 Feb 2006 at 13:34

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12...city_to_fast_and_quiet_t133_series/page8.html

Seems to suggest that the Samsung Spinpoint drives come second to pretty much nothing, and they're still reckoned to be very quiet.

smids · 11 Feb 2006 at 13:39

I have got nothing against Samsung but I just feel the others are a lot more established HDU manufacturers which is why I chose them

.

KiNETiK · 11 Feb 2006 at 13:58

I have the samsung hdd's and you can see the performance of them in my other thread. I think they are really good drives but i wouldnt say they were quiet...

chrismox · 11 Feb 2006 at 14:10

I guess "quiet" is relative but, according to Silent PC Review, they're the best you can buy these days as far as noise is concerned (only ever bettered by Barracuda IV)

I read your other thread KiNETiK - where did you get the floppy nvRAID drivers?

KiNETiK · 11 Feb 2006 at 14:50

ahh fair enough, i guess i dont have any other SATA drives to compare it to, only an older PATA IBM drive... I got my nvraid floppy with the motherboard. I was gonna install the ones with the latest nforce4 drivers but they were too big to fit on a floppy!

chrismox · 11 Feb 2006 at 19:26

I managed to get the latest drivers (the ones from nForce4 6.70) - I'm sure they make little difference but if you want them, I'll happily email them to you.

PS - they fit on a floppy, only 535kb

KiNETiK · 11 Feb 2006 at 19:40

o yea i did get them but i thought i needed to put all the files in the IDE folder onto the floppy apart from the raidtools dir and that came out to abotu 1.7mb. Anyway doesn;t matter now cheers. I installed with them and then updated my nforce drivers when windows was back up and running. Whether it makes any diff I dunno

Thanks anyway mate

ubern00b · 12 Feb 2006 at 22:22

I have 4 Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 250gb SATAII drives in RAID0 in my rig and they are absolutely blinding. HDTach reports 340mb/s burst and 160mb/s avg with the graph being a pretty straight line @ 160mb/s with no dips. I know I have 4 and you will have 2 but its an indication anyway. Cant say they are very quiet when reading and writing but thats because there are 4 HDD's looking for the same thing i assume!

chrismox · 13 Feb 2006 at 11:45

Thanks ubern00b, will do some more reading...