First build blues - 2

[nocrapman]

Thanks for the help with other issues. I have another question. I am deciding what kind of HD i want as a primary boot drive(non-RAID). I would love to go with a 10,000 rpm Raptor... but its not very cost effective for me as of now. So I am stuck with 7200 rpms. Of these, most ppl seem to go with a WD Caviars - they are pretty cheap and good. If the seek times and latencies are the same - should I go for a big HD like a 250 or 300 gigs... or stay smaller in the 80 to 160 gig range? I dont have a special need for enormous disk space. Most of my stuff fits on a 40 gigs HD. But it wouldn't hurt to have some extra space since cost increments are not that big. Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[HomeyFoos]

I'm hardly and expert but I have built a few systems and have made similar decisions to the one you are facing. If I were in your shoes, I would go with whichever single drive solution you are comfortable with and just partition the drive into C and D with C being about 40 gigs (or whatever makes you happy, just plenty of space for windows). If this is something you had intended to do already, my apologies. But if you can't get 10k RPM there really isn't a point to having 2 units (a small for windows and a big for storage) as it will create heat and suck electricity.

Good luck and again, sorry if I way undershot your question

 

[wanderer27]

From what I've heard there's not a whole lot difference in usable bandwidth between the Raptor and a good SATA. Some people even say the ATA 133 bandwidth's not really fully used.

I got my 250GB SATA for about $100. I went with this model because it has 16MB Cache versus most other drives having 8MB. Some people don't like Maxtor drives, but I've been using them for years and have never had a problem. I have had some WD Drives die on me though, so I steer clear of them. Not sure about Seagate one way or the other.

 

[golgotha]

I bought two maxtor 250 gig drives at the same time about a year ago, and they both died on the same day last week! omg I am so pissed at maxtor right now because the 1 year warranty has just expired, and the drives fail. I never cared about warranties before but seagate give a 5 year warranty and maxtor gives a 1 year warranty. There must be a reason for that.

btw, you can pick up a 250gb drive for under $80 these days, especially if you don't mind rebates. check out deal sites like fatwallet or slickdeals for some pointers there.

 

[nocrapman]

Is there any merit in buying the retail version rather than OEM. I have had a bad expersience with seagate. I have ppl feel bad about every HD brand around - well maybe not Hitachi... but then how many ppl buy those. I guess as long as one has a decent warranty coverage...

Thanks for your input guys.

 

[Tu13erhead]

Originally posted by: nocrapman
Is there any merit in buying the retail version rather than OEM.

If the warranty is the same, not really. Retails will come in a pretty box and might include a SATA cable or a CD with software on it.