Max Builds a PC Series Part V: Hard Disk

Posted By: Max Zuckerman | Dec 26th, 2007 @ 11:45 AM | 2,866 Views | 49 Comments

Formats:

It looks like our PC is really starting to take shape having had great discussions already about our case, CPU, motherboard, and RAM.

Some of those components were a little more limited in choices since you can't plop an AMD Phenom into an Intel X38 chipset... not without bending some pins at least and creating a very expensive paperweight--not recommended.

But now we're onto the hard disk and oh man are there plenty of choices out there.

So as usual, here are some pointers to keep in mind:

Interface to the motherboard... SATA? SATAII? IDE??
Rotation speed of the disk... 5400RPM? 7200RPM? 10,000RPM??!?!?
Size of course.... let's think GB, first person to say TeraBytes is getting their username changed to "I-Like-A-Do-Da-Cha-Cha."
Brand... I'll be honest that I've had bad experiences with some of the top brands except Western Digital. They are the only brand for me these days, but I'm talking about years ago so maybe others are good these days; you tell me.

Alright, let the games begin!

Tags: hard disk, hard drive, max builds a pc series

Rating:

Lloyd_Humph
Somewhat eviler than Skeletor

We're going High Perf, right?

So I reckon two of these in Striped RAID http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=301

And One of these for the OS

http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop/index.pl?origin=gbase26.2&prodID=B86834

would be acceptable.

Speed for the OS and the USER folder mapped to the 500GB of free space on the WD's.

I agree that WD made some decent HDDs, and their externals are excellent.

So 532GB of Storage would be enough, right?

I could really do with this computer... I've almost filled this 160G stock HDD up!

Trix

I personally would never raid, it is more trouble than it is worth, premature failures of one drive and whatnot. I would get a single 150GB Western Digital Raptor 10k RPM drive, then get a 750GB Western Digital drive (the WD7500AAKS or the WD7500AACS for the more ecofriendly, also at a slight performance loss). Both are great performers.

aeoth

SATAII, 7200RPM, 500gb.

Faster RPM, and you get noiser/hotter/more power drain
Capacity wise, at least in AU, 500gb works out best in the gb:dollar ratio.

Brand? I've had bad and good experiences with both Seagate and WD (the two main contenders), so at the moment I'd go for WD as they work out cheaper.

platinumacetric

hey hey hey. happy holidays guys. Hey trix you missed me..

Ok.. you guys won't belive this. but i agree with trix 95 % of the way.. the only part i dont fully agree is that raid is notworth the trouble. Nice now that is out of the way.

I -- just like Trix said.. recommend getting a 10 - 15 k rpm hardrive for the primary hardrive. Reason. the primary hardrive is where windows stores all the hibernate files,drivers etc. it is also the drive that will be accessed the most. the raptor drive recommended by trix is defiently one of the best on the market.

No when it comes to the secondary harddrive this is where i will split from trix. i will recommend get 4 (200 - 500 )gb harddrives of speed 7200 rpm in a raid 5 configuration. The reason is pretty simple. Raid 5 offers excellent speed as well file recovery in case one or more hardrives fails ( note you still need atleast 2 hardrives for data to be recovered correctly). also the reason you want to make this secondary is because when the primary hardrive fails you are almost guaranteed to get all your documents back , provided you map your documents to the secondary raid 5 drive.

note with raid 5 you get bad write performance but read performance is of the charts since you can search all the drives at onces and get data simultaneously. also by having 4 200gb hardrive you have an effective 558 of usable space. SO this is using pretty cheap hardrives, since 200 gb can be found for under $80 now adays.

cheong

Some of you have suggested RAID, but failed to account for what type of RAID. Software RAID? Hardware RAID?

And if it's hardware one, which brand/model of RAID card do you prefer?

I don't think it qualifies as full answer to the question if failing to provide these information...

Max
Spaceman Spiff!

In reply to cheong

#Dec 26th, 2007 @ 10:18 PM

Honestly I don't think RAID is even necessary.... my vote would be for a Raptor main drive and maybe a storage drive.... Although I'm not sure if I'll give in to 2 or more drives at all Wink

Make your case, gumshoe.

sriram
hello world

surprisingly i've never had issues with seagate... not even a single drive crash Smiley

...but seeing that most of you are unhappy with seagate + i want to try something different = I support Western Digital.

Western Digital Raptor X + WD7500AAKS [WD Caviar 16, 750GB]

I honestly dont think 150 gb is enough.

I've had to re-partition my drives twice since i got vista ulitmate...first time i gave my OS drive 25gb and it ran out in a week [all my programs on non-os drive] and then i upped it to 40gb and the drive ran out in about 3 months... now i've given my OS drive about 53gb and 47gb for my programs... 100GB gone
and since i (like many others) download a lot... i dont think (the remaining) 50 gb space would suffice...

so my request to Max: 150 + 750 = 900 Smiley

i'm not for RAID... nevr used it. if at all we use RAID .. could we settle for a RAID 0..
I like performance .... and since i really dont have mission critical data (no need for redundancy)

dau_sama

In reply to sriram

#Dec 26th, 2007 @ 11:34 PM

Ehy guys ;p
I'll go with a 10K Raptor for the OS.
For the storage I'll go with two WD 750GB or with two 1TB Seagate. I actually have a Seagate 160GB HD and it's really noiseless, it's hard to hear even when it's searching data. Moreover, i read some time ago that Seagate was the first company introducing the perpendicular recording technology which leads to high density reliable HD.

sriram
hello world

In reply to dau_sama

#Dec 27th, 2007 @ 1:44 AM

dua_sama: your login has been renamed to "I-Like-A-Do-Da-Cha-Cha." Wink

(regarding capacity:)The more the merrier man!