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1 2TB Drive or 2 1TB Drives?

N

NewYorksFinest

Senior member
Just wondering, a 2TB black costs ~$169.99. One Western Digital 1TB Black costs $69.99. The 2 1TBs cost ~$140, or $139.98 to be exact. That is ~$20.01 cheaper than 1 2TB drive. Or, you can buy 2 WD blues for $60 for a total of $120, about $50 cheaper. Or 1 Black and one Blue for $130. Is buying 2 1TB drives worth it? Just wondering...
 
I always go for fewer (bigger) drives where possible. There's statistically less chance of failure that way, plus there's possibly less administration (e.g. no RAID).
 
Two drives if you don't mind using up an additional SATA port and you're planning to have it in RAID 0. Storage capacity matters to me and my motherboard has limited number of SATA ports, so I prefer to have the largest capacity per drive.
 
dma0991 said:
Two drives if you don't mind using up an additional SATA port and you're planning to have it in RAID 0. Storage capacity matters to me and my motherboard has limited number of SATA ports, so I prefer to have the largest capacity per drive.
Click to expand...

My motherboard has 8 Sata III ports. I could also always buy a PCIe card with additional sata ports. They are like 2 inches long, no need to put them in the PCIe brackets where the GPU ports go...
 
dave_the_nerd said:
Are we talking internal or external?

Because paying over $100 for a 2TB is kind of 2012.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822149407

I have a few of these. They're plenty fast. If I need speed, that's what SSDs are for. A spinner's a spinner anymore.
Click to expand...

On the Toshibas, 161 is a nice, large sample-size that says "moderately popular." 3 Eggs average needs further investigation by an analysis of the three lowest ratings.

I need to take a look at these . . .

Now the OP's question. I had a C2Q in 2007 that ran four HDDs 24/7. The power requirements on a 2TB drive is likely half of the two 1TB's running together. On my workstations, now that we have adequate SSDs, I might run an HDD of 1TB or half that. My server is a compromise between efficiency, replication and power consumption, so three 2TB drives, planning to add the fourth if I think about it some more.

The Blacks are great drives, and I have more than just a couple. But some of the NAS offerings, like the WD Reds and Seagate NAS, use less power. They only run at 5,400 RPM. But the way I use them, I can show in excess of 300MB/s and a tad higher for the entire array. That's good enough for a house of 3 users.
 
BonzaiDuck said:
On the Toshibas, 161 is a nice, large sample-size that says "moderately popular." 3 Eggs average needs further investigation by an analysis of the three lowest ratings.

I need to take a look at these . . .
Click to expand...

The retail packaged drives have a much higher rating, better than the WD Blacks. I believe it has something to do with Newegg's crap packaging of OEM drives

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA1N81H85568

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822149396

I have a few of the 2 and 3 TB models, all work flawlessly, The 3TB are about $100 on sale.
 
WilliamM2 said:
The retail packaged drives have a much higher rating, better than the WD Blacks. I believe it has something to do with Newegg's crap packaging of OEM drives.
Click to expand...

Interesting...

Newegg has always shipped my bulk drives pretty well, TigerDirect, on the other hand...
 
It depends.

1) Cheaper option, 2 x 1T

2) Faster option, 2 x 1T in RAID 0

3) More flexible, 2 x 1T

4) Less chance for failure 1 x 2T

5) Less SATA port require, 1 x 2T

6) Less power consumption, 1 x 2T
 
NewYorksFinest said:
My motherboard has 8 Sata III ports. I could also always buy a PCIe card with additional sata ports. They are like 2 inches long, no need to put them in the PCIe brackets where the GPU ports go...
Click to expand...

The case is more of a limiting factor. Most cases only have room for 5 or 6 drives. Even larger full size cases top out at 8-10 drives.
 
NewYorksFinest said:
Just wondering, a 2TB black costs ~$169.99. One Western Digital 1TB Black costs $69.99. The 2 1TBs cost ~$140, or $139.98 to be exact. That is ~$20.01 cheaper than 1 2TB drive. Or, you can buy 2 WD blues for $60 for a total of $120, about $50 cheaper. Or 1 Black and one Blue for $130. Is buying 2 1TB drives worth it? Just wondering...
Click to expand...

I've had such good luck with modern drives I go for RAID0 whenever possible (except for backup). When I recently put together my desktop and HTPC I put two 1TB Blues in each machine. Fast access is nice, and the failure risk is moot if you backup.
 
dave_the_nerd said:
All sorts of adapters and bay converters like that though. Putting 4 or 5 3.5" HDDs in 3x5.25" bays is pretty common.
Click to expand...

The adapters aren't free though. The OP was already fretting over $20.

Personally, I value storage density. I wouldn't bother buying anything less than a 4TB drive these days.
 
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