Hard Drive Upgrade Recomendations

[Jila]

Hey all, just looking for a little bit of advise, tips, what you would do type thing. I currently run 2x36GB Raptor's in a RAID 0. Ive been running them for what seems like forever. I started with 1 of the drives shorlty after they came out and added a second shortly after they released the 74GB version of the drive. I am intersted in upgrading my HD configuration. Obviously based on my current setup two new Raptor's in a raid 0 config seems ideal. However I was hoping not to spend that much money. Ive been trying to read HD articles but its hard to gauge without actually bench marking what I have so that I can compare to newer drives. So if you all were to upgrade, what would you do? Also set asside drive capacity, I have a file server that stores all my files, this is purly for OS and installed apps. Im thinking that my current setup, even with the older drives is prolly the best I can do without spending a ton of money. I was hoping to get some confirmation on that from you all. Thanks for your time!

Also a brief overview of my setup
AMD x2 3800
EPoX Ultra (Dont remember the fun letters, single PCI-E)
Evga GeForce 7800GTX
2GB Corsair (4x512, got two, then got two of hte same thing later on)
2x36GB Raptors in RAID 0 (Using onboard controller)
Sound Blaster X-Fi
500w Forton PSU
Lian-Li V1100 Case

 

[Bobthelost]

Intended useage?

If you want to improve your boot times then a couple of Raptor 150s in RAID 0 would be excellent. If you want to improve your gaming load times then get yourself a 7200rpm drive and put your OS on that, the games then go on the raptors. If you want to speed up your media transcoding then it's a whole different kettle of fish.

 

[Jila]

Ahh, guess I should have put my intentions in the OP.

Anyway, the primary use of my computer is gaming. Yes Im a WoW freak! Other that gaming I do your basics, web surfing, outlook, word processing. Although I do fraps and create videos, its not something I do daily and need the greatest possible performance on, however I would prefer it better than average. I also run VMware for a testing and things of that nature I have at least one install of each, WindowsXP/2k/2k3/Linux. I use O&O defrag to keep things tidy and general store as much as I can on my file server, and copy thigns back and forth when I want to use them. Sounds like a pita im sure but its not to bad once you get used to it and it keeps my local drive pretty clean.

Hope that helps some.

 

[Bobthelost]

Yeah, i'd go for the second option, OS on a 7200 and games on the 10Ks, use partitions to keep things neat. Or another raptor for the OS instead of a 7200 drive (a new 16mb 74GB raptor will probably be faster than RAID0 36GB drives so i'd keep the OS on the RAID and the games on the 74GB).

Remember that this won't make a bit of difference to your gaming experience, once the games are loaded it won't alter your fps in the slightest.

 

[Jila]

Both of my Raptors are WD360GD which is the 8MB of cache version. Im sure they have made some firmware and other improvments along the way to this line of drives. Seeing as how mine are older I have to agree that the single 74gb 16mb of cache version would most likely be faster.

So use the slower set of drives for my OS. Then use the faster single drive for my installed games, apps, VMWare fimages? Where would you toss the page file?

Yes I do understand that I wont see an imporvment in, in game performance. That is fine, I dont have a problem with my current gaming performance. Im just looking to improve my box some. Havent done anything to it in a while and I got the bug.

 

[Bobthelost]

Page file is mostly irrelevant, you won't be using it, but the OS drive would be my choice (that way it doesn't affect your games drive).

If you have the money and the urge to upgrade then enjoy