absolute best HDD I can get for $100?

[shevanel]

I'm going to RMA my seagate 7200.12 500gb because I can hear it click and spin up and I think its on the verge of dying although it's only 6 months old or so..

I am wondering what is the absolute best/fastest hdd I can get for around $100 for 500gb minimum range?

Or should I buy a drive just like mine so when it returns from RMA I can RAID it?

I've never done raid but Ive heard good things about it so why not try?

If raid no go... then just please recommend a great drive pref. from newegg if new.

Thanks you

 

[DirectorC]

No Seagate! Get two WD 2500AAKS or 3200AAKS drives and RAID0 them up

 

[shevanel]

If I raid 0 it don't I only get to use drive space from 1 drive? Debating drive size.

 

[DirectorC]

No RAID0 is striping and writes to both drives simultaneously, sort of giving you a 14.4K RPM drive that appears as a single volume the size of both drives.

RAID1 is mirroring and that's where you get the space of one drive.

 

[DirectorC]

Two for $95 shipped. I wouldn't think twice.

 

[shevanel]

yeah that is a great deal, i think im going to jump on it... but ill make that decision after some sleep.

Is raid0 easy to setup? Is it mainly for speed?

 

[wiak]

Samsung F3 are the best atm

 

[DirectorC]

Is raid0 easy to setup? Is it mainly for speed?

Yes on both. It's so that you get crazy sustained write/read speeds. Write speeds improve more than anything.

 

[shevanel]

Cool. Sounds like something my pc could use... everything is over 7.5 on WEI but my hdd is 5.4 lol

For under $100 sounds like a great idea.. so I will have 640gb of space? (minus ya know the usually allocations and what not)

When the RMA completes and I get my 500gb back, will I be able to use it as an independant storage drive?

Right now if I move a file from one folder to another, like a .mkv or something... it transfer at about 30mb/sec..

 

[DirectorC]

Cool. Sounds like something my pc could use... everything is over 7.5 on WEI but my hdd is 5.4 lol

For under $100 sounds like a great idea.. so I will have 640gb of space? (minus ya know the usually allocations and what not)

When the RMA completes and I get my 500gb back, will I be able to use it as an independant storage drive?

Right now if I move a file from one folder to another, like a .mkv or something... it transfer at about 30mb/sec..

Yeah you'll have a single '640'GB volume.

Keeping your 500GB for backup purposes is a good idea, as RAID0 array is dependent on both drives so if one fails all data is gone. I've been working mine like dogs for 9 months so far though and everything is good. As long as a fan is blowing across your drive cage then you're good to go.

Also, 500GB Samsung F3s are $50: http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=HD-HD502HJ

With free shipping = $100 shipped. I hate Samsung products and love WD drives but I wouldn't mind you going for the F3s instead of the AKs

You'll love your RAID0 either way.

 

[shevanel]

I could use the extra drive space for the same price too for the samsungs.. i should research there warranty/rma too.. I know WD's is top notch.

I'll probbaly go the samsung route bec. of the 500gb size..

thanks for all the info.. in the meantime I guess it's time to start reading on how to setup RAID0..

my mobo supports SATA RAID 0/1/5/10 Matrix RAID so I should be good.

I'll prob spend the extra $10 and get these from newegg... i love newegg and Im the loyal type. 3 year warranty one these.. the WD had a 1 year on that other link

 

[87dtna]

I would get a WD caviar black 640gb.

Two small drives in raid 0 is slower than one fast larger drive. I tried two WD 320gb AAKS drives in raid 0, slower in everyway than my old seagate 500gb 7200.11.

BTW, a solid state disk is worth every penny. I'd get one for a boot drive and use your 500gb for storage.
I have 3 SSD's in raid 0, here's my speeds-

Here's a single-

HD tune does not read SSD's in raid 0 properly. Windows 7 experience is 6.8 with a single drive, and 7.7 with three

 

[techsmith]

If you are going for 500GB, Samsung F3s are single platter I think (so are Seagates new 500GB IIRC)

If you are going for 640GB, Caviar Blacks from Western Digital have dual platters, 5 year warranty, 32MB cache, etc.

 

[angelkiller]

Two small drives in raid 0 is slower than one fast larger drive. I tried two WD 320gb AAKS drives in raid 0, slower in everyway than my old seagate 500gb 7200.11.

Hmmm.

That depends on alot of things. Yes, two 80GB drives is Raid 0 will be slower than a WD6400AAKS. Largely due to the fact that the 640GB drive has a much much much larger platter density that it's able to overcome the increased bandwidth that the 80GB drives in Raid 0 has. But assuming the same firmware (ie optimized the same way), two 500GB single platter drives will be faster than a dual platter 1TB drive. Why? Simple. There are two drives delivering data at the same time. A single hard drive can only be in one place at a time while two hard drives can be at two places at once. That's the whole principle behind Raid 0. Half of a file is delivered by one drive and the other half is delivered by the other. In theory, this doubles your bandwidth. Real world gains are often dependent on the task, but I can't think of any way that Raid 0 would be slower than a single drive.

 

[rockleez]

could you raid a ssd?

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

could you raid a ssd?

Hell yeah you can

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=318&Itemid=60&limit=1&limitstart=7

Hmmm.

That depends on alot of things. Yes, two 80GB drives is Raid 0 will be slower than a WD6400AAKS. Largely due to the fact that the 640GB drive has a much much much larger platter density that it's able to overcome the increased bandwidth that the 80GB drives in Raid 0 has. But assuming the same firmware (ie optimized the same way), two 500GB single platter drives will be faster than a dual platter 1TB drive. Why? Simple. There are two drives delivering data at the same time. A single hard drive can only be in one place at a time while two hard drives can be at two places at once. That's the whole principle behind Raid 0. Half of a file is delivered by one drive and the other half is delivered by the other. In theory, this doubles your bandwidth. Real world gains are often dependent on the task, but I can't think of any way that Raid 0 would be slower than a single drive.

Excellent, simple explanation.

 

[Reefer86]

The samsung F3 drives are the best atm they trade blows with the WD caviar blacks, but the samsungs just come out on top and are alot cheeper.

 

[mlee49]

Western Digital Black 640GB is one of the best high capacity drives at the moment.

Newegg sold a special on them this week for $65 shipped and now they are sold out.

I have 2x320GB WD AAKs's in Raid 0 and I love them. I have a third I'm using for my other build just sitting here.

If your going Seagate, go with the 7200.12's the .11's had issues and the .12's are definitely better.

 

[87dtna]

could you raid a ssd?

Did you completely miss my post??

 

[newtekie1]

Just by the same drive as the one you are RMAing and put both in RAID. 1TB of extremely fast space, or buy two and do RAID5...speed and data redundancy FTW!

 

[RejZoR]

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 is teh win.

 

[radi4fun]

I've got Samsung F3 and i am very pleased with it. it stays very cool and much better than my 500GB Barracuda 7200.11