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[LizardKing]

So I'm building a computer and I'm wondering what the actual performance difference between all the different types of hard drives are. Like serial ata, or if i raid them or scsi. What will get be the best performance and is the difference noticeable. Any help is much appreciated!

specs (if it makes a difference)

6800 gt
athlon 64 3400
kingston hyper x ddr 400 mem (1 gig)
Thanks!

 

[DaCocoBrova]

RAID is for having multiple discs that act as one basically. The most fault tolerant solution, but not really recommended for regular computer use. If you edit video and sh!t, than you may want to go that route though.

Just get a regular ol' HDD (avoid Maxtor if you value your data). I prefer Western Digital and Seagate. You want to get a 8MB buffer ideally.

What will the machine be used for? What capacity?

 

[DarthWoo]

Oh, and take all the recommendations of "get X and avoid Y if you value your data" with a grain of salt. Whenever one of these threads start, there's about as many people who will say that Maxtor is the devil-spawn as there are who will say the same of Western Digital, or most other brands. I guess IBM gets hit the hardest though, and Seagate generally comes across as one of the better brands.

Personally though, I've had two Maxtors, one of which has worked fine for 5 years, another for 3.5 years, both still running fine to this day. My first drive to show signs of crapping out was a Seagate, ironically. It didn't die, but for about a year it was making this terrible scratching noise that led me to believe that it was a liability to continue storing data on it. So I replaced it....with another, larger Seagate.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

^^

Do some research on failure rates and report back.

 

[mrklaw]

^^ had a maxtor drive fuck up on him

 

[jenov4]

Whatever you do, stay the hell away from Hitachi/IBM!

And yeah, I read DarthWoo's post.

 

[ChrisReid]

I've got one of the dreaded IBM deathstars, plus two large maxtors in this machine. All run 24 hours. All running great after 3 years, 2 years and one month respectively. I've run 20 drives in various computers at home over the years. Only had one die.. think it was Western Digital actually. I agree Seagates seem pretty damn good, but Maxtor/Western Digital are about even/average in all regards.

At the end of the year Seagate is rolling out a 400 gig/16 meg buffer drive. Won't be cheap, but I might get it anyway.

 

[VitaBone]

Raid is worthless, don't bother unless you're running a server.

Seagate and Western Digital are the only two good brands out there.

Have fun.

 

[GG-Duo]

Why is it that S-ATA harddrives never go on sale?

 

[Particle Physicist]

I've got one of the dreaded IBM deathstars, plus two large maxtors in this machine. All run 24 hours. All running great after 3 years, 2 years and one month respectively. I've run 20 drives in various computers at home over the years. Only had one die.. think it was Western Digital actually. I agree Seagates seem pretty damn good, but Maxtor/Western Digital are about even/average in all regards.

At the end of the year Seagate is rolling out a 400 gig/16 meg buffer drive. Won't be cheap, but I might get it anyway.

you can get a 160GB seagate for about 100 bucks.


i have a 45GB ibm deathstar. it died on me two week after i got it.. got a replacement and its been running fine since then (3 years) .. but man, i had some important projects on that first drive.. was not a fun time.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

My problem w/ Maxtors, is that in my experience (and that of others based off of what I've read), they die w/ no warning.

They work great and then...R.I.P. Plus they're usually loud(er) and run hot(ter). I have two external drives that I use daily. The WD runs warm, but quiet, while the Maxtor is hot to the touch (can cook eggs on it) and it sounds like it's rusted on the inside it's so loud.

 

[Overseer]

My problem w/ Maxtors, is that in my experience (and that of others based off of what I've read), they die w/ no warning.

They work great and then...R.I.P. Plus they're usually loud(er) and run hot(ter).

They are alot louder. As far as hotness, I am not sure. But when I had my 40GB maxtor it was LOUD. Then it died one day for no apparent reason.

 

[mrklaw]

Raid is worthless, don't bother unless you're running a server

Why worthless?

These days, HDDs are getting larger and larger, and the personal data you store on them is getting more and more. Even with a 200GB HDD, it'll easily hold enough pictures/movies/mp3s that it would be a *big* pain in the ass to rerip/download them all again.

Plus, HDD prices are really low right now. So surely for the price of one HDD, you get data security?

 

[NohWun]

I believe that he meant that RAID is worthless if your goal is more performance.

If your goal is data safety, then RAID makes some sense.

 

[SKluck]

SATA SATA SATA! Maybe it's me, but getting rid of the master/slave shit is cool. Much simpler. Not to mention the speed.

SEAGATE. Only go Seagate!

What is the limit of HDD sizes for SP1/SP2 now? XP native is 130... SP1 is....? Or is there theoretically no more limit on HDD space?

 

[Neo_ZX]

This is about as good as you're going to get:
7200rpm
8.5ms seek time
8 MB cache

Other factors:
S-ATA/IDE
noise

I've worked with computers for a long time and dealt with a variety of parts. All hard drives are mechanical so all will fail eventually. However in my own experiences combined with those around me, I would rank brands like this:

Seagate>WD>>>>>>>Maxtor>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>IBM/Hitachi+Samsung+Fujitsu+others

At work (large corp), almost all of our 3 year old 10GB IBM TravelStar HDs are on the verge of dying.
No one I've known has bought an IBM DeskStar... except one person. He recorded the head crash sound and it sounded like a laser going off.
I've returned at least 10-15 units of 10-20GB Maxtor IDE HDs since the beginning of the year.

 

[myzhi]

If you want the best performing drives, RPM is what you should be looking at. The faster the RPM the better the performance, ie fastest SCSI > SATA > IDE.


If you want relability, get a slower RPM. They generate less heat which generally leads to longer life. Thus, leading me to another point, keeping your HDs cool. Get case fans blowing on them.


For affordable good results, I would suggest Raid 0 WD Raptor (10,000 RPM) drives for OS and programs + large 7200 RPM drive(s) for storage.