Pick and choose..

[trxjw]

For my build I'm trying to decide between the following setups:

2 x WD2500KS 250GB drives

or

1 x 74 GB WD Raptor + 1 x WD4000KS 400GB Drive
(I know this choice is more expensive, so I'm kinda leaning towards my first option)

The system I'm building is running off Conroe and wont be built until October at the earliest, but I like to plan ahead. The rig is going to be my primary (nice way of saying only) computer and it is split about 50-50 between gaming and heavy media work. Primarily web applications and graphic apps like Photoshop and Illustrator. I need the space to backup client sites, 100mb+ .psd and .ai files, and the occasional video or QTVR media.

My main concerns are reliability and load times in games. I know the raptor is extremely fast, but I cant justify spending 300 bucks on the X which is why I would need a 400GB secondary drive. Also, my roommate has had 3 raptors fail on him over the last couple years so while I'm sure it was just his own bad luck, I'm still gunshy about trusting thousands of dollars worth of work to a raptor.

Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[Lazn_Work]

How about those tasty Seagate 7200.10 drives, 320GB for $95.. A pair of these would be nice.

Any modern 16MB buffer drive will be fairly fast.. The newest from each of the MFG's are faster than the older raptors.. Of course the new raptor is faster yet.

Personally I have a 160GB raptor and a 7200.9.. were I buying now I would get a 7200.10, but I am happy with what I got.

I guess it is all a matter of how fast you need your boot drive to be. Either choise is a good one.

==>Lazn

 

[trxjw]

How about those tasty Seagate 7200.10 drives, 320GB for $95.. A pair of these would be nice.

Hmm. I don't know much about those, but I heard the Perpendicular recording is 'untested' technology. I don't know if I trust that, but I'll certainly look into em. Storage has always been one area of PC building that I've kind of ignored lol.. so I guess its time to do some reading

 

[Chernobyl1]

How about 2 Raptors in RAID 1 (mirroring)?
You will get the normal performance and can afford a drive failure.

If all your data needs to be protected, you can use backups or get 2 large drives instead and mirror those.
I recommend periodic backups anyway as unforseen problems can either ruin much data or kill both drives.
ie dropping the PC, lightning strike, an accidental () kick, Driver problem or suchlike writing bad data or to the wrong place...