Which Hard Disk Drive?

GazD · 19 Feb 2007 at 18:59

Currently I have a 200Gb Seagate 7200.10, I have it partitioned with OS\Apps\Games on one partition and then the other larger partition as storage. I would now like to get a smaller separate Hard Drive just for my OS\Apps\Games. Which one would be best for this? Raptors will be out of my budget by the way as I cant justify spending roughly a £1 per gigabyte on a hard disk.

Many Thanks

semi-pro waster · 19 Feb 2007 at 19:30

I'd personally pick more or less at random from Hitachi (very different from when IBM were in charge), Samsung, Seagate or Western Digital as there isn't a huge amount of difference between them in my eyes. The Samsungs are likely to be the quietest overall but the difference may well be marginal.

GazD · 19 Feb 2007 at 19:59

Ok thanks, what about cache size, would a 16Mb cache see a bigger improvement as an OS drive than a 8Mb one?

cavemanoc · 19 Feb 2007 at 20:47

Have you considered matching the drive you have and going for a Raid 0 array - I understand what you're trying to do with the separate drives, but still think it would be quicker with the Raid.

semi-pro waster · 19 Feb 2007 at 20:53

A 16mb cache drive should be faster (that is the purpose of the cache after all) but whether you'd notice any significant difference is something I couldn't really say. That is of course assuming you are comparing drives from the same manufacturer as between manufacturers platter data density varies etc which probably affects the speed more than the actual cache sizes.

cavemanoc, Raid0 would mean reformatting the existing drive plus you are adding an extra layer of complexity and unreliability that doesn't need to be there I don't think. There are certainly some areas that benefit from it but mainly in the area of large contiguous file manipulation e.g. video, audio, picture editing.

cavemanoc · 20 Feb 2007 at 00:17

GazD said:
Currently I have a 200Gb Seagate 7200.10, I have it partitioned with OS\Apps\Games on one partition and then the other larger partition as storage. I would now like to get a smaller separate Hard Drive just for my OS\Apps\Games.

He's going to have to reformat anyway, raid (onboard) really isn't thaaaat difficult - still, each to their own!

And by chance from another thread!

Gamezy said:
Only drives I've ever used have been seagate's and not one has failed (in a measly 5 years). Got 2x 320gb, 7200.10's in RAID 0 at the minute and it's fast and silent. If it is making noise, I sure as hell can't hear it over case fans!

Couldn't reccommend them more (the RAID edges out my mates Raptor in a lot of game loading times and have 4x as much storage )