Main hard drive versus storage drive question

C

Chowder Head

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 20, 2005
Messages
244
Should I be looking at any different specs when shopping for either one? Because right now I have a Seagate 300GB SATA drive and naturally assumed I would use this for storage, and I would maybe get a smaller, yet faster hard drive for my main files so it would boot up faster.

So is there anything spec wise I should be looking at in particular when shopping for the main drive? And if guys could name some recommended drives, that would help as well. I've read the sticky so far but it never hurts to hear more opinion. I keep hearing Deskstar this, and Rapter that and get confused, lol.

Thanks for any help, it's appreciated.
 
Just did some researching on the Western Digital Raptor WD740GD drive and it looks like a hell of a deal for desktops and use the Seagate for music and such. I might go with this.

Do you guys agree? Any personal uses with this drive?

Thanks.
 
This is a pretty common setup and works well for most people.
 
Thanks for the reply.

I was about to buy one but I noticed I was a day late for the MIR from newegg! Damn it!

However, I was browsing through the online relators and noticed a place that was selling one for about $110. Only thing that might be a problem is that it's a refub.

Here's the link: http://www.directron.com/wd740a.html

It's a tempting price but should I avoid it because it's a refurb? I've heard some people say stay away, and others say go for it, it should work fine.

What do you all think? Thanks!
 
i always stay away from refurbs because i never know of the condition it is in. newegg has 74gb raptors, this one and this one. not sure which one is the better drive though
 
The WD740ADFD is the newer revision of the same drive. It had twice the cache (16MB) and it likely to be faster. Also, the ADFD version supports NCQ instead of TCQ.
 
I sold off my Raptors and just use whatever as my boot drive now (currently using a Hitachi 160GB SATA) as I couldnt cost justify the extra .005 seconds that my machine booted with the Raptors in it. Yes it was faster but honestly it was imperceptible to me. As far as refurbs my guideline is this

If the warranty refurb is the same as the refurb new then I am usually ok with it. My rule is that if you don't think you fixed it (ie a shorter warranty) then why should I trust your having fixed it. The Raptor that you linked up there came with a 90 day warranty where a new one comes with a 5 year warranty. I dont think that the Raptor 74GB has been out anywhere near 5 years so my question is what did they do to void the warranty (as if it was a refurb from WD it would carry the balance of warranty of the 5 years)
 
Thanks for the info guys, I'll just wait for another rebate for the Raptors if I still decide I want them.

However, I stumbled on the Western Digital Caviar SE16 drives and have read great things about them when I searched the forums. Generally, people are saying they are slower then a Raptor (but still fast) and has a boat load more GB (74 vrs 320) with a smaller price tag. Link is here: http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101253-12

My next question is this. Can a hard drive be "too big" when it comes to being the main drive for OS bootup, game storage, etc? I mean, I'm planning on having the Seagate as storage so I don't know what I'm going to do with 320GB. Then again, you can never run out of space. Damn this is tough, lol.

I guess what it all boils down to, if I were to use up 250GB of my main drive (let's say I have the SE16), would it still boot up nearly as quickly if I had the drive but only 10GB of storage?

Anyone see where I'm getting at? Sorry for the confusion but there are so many choices out there, it's hard to decide.

Thanks for any assistance.
 
One of the issues that you are having is that as drives get bigger, they also get faster.
The data is more dense on the platters and the heads don't have to move as far. The one 7200rpm SATA drive that can beat a Raptor on some drive tests is a 500GB Hitachi (IIRC) there might be others out now that the drives are going vertical and the data density is increasing, again.

The only way that you would gain a speed advantage is if you could guarentee the physical position of the 10GB OS partition that you are talking about. Drives read data faster from one end of the disk than they do the other. I can't remember which, but I think it's the outside is faster than the inside, u_m can correct me if I'm wrong.

And I don't know if there is an utility that would let you move the partition to where you wnated it on the platter. Anybody?

Personally, I have a 150GB Raptor for my OS, Programs & Games. A 320GB RAID 0 array for the data I'm working on or playing with, and it will be going RAID 5 when I can afford another WD160JB. A 300GB USB Drive for offline use and moving stuff. And a 1.25TB RAID 5 in my server for imaging my other drives and computers to. And several DVD-Burners for true data back-up.

Wish I could afford a tape libary for backing up the 1.25TB array. Talk about expensive! :(

 
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