Help me choose a storage solution

[entropy1982]

Hey guys,

I am looking into buying a storage solution for a pretty high end x2 system. Now i noticed seagate does not have SATA II drives while hitachi does... does this make a big difference. Money is an issue here but i am also looking for relatively good performance next to the raptors. My original idea was 2X250GB SATA II hitachi drives in raid 0 (loss of data is not an issue). Does sata I and II really make a big difference and which drives are the great ones?

Any suggestions would be great,

Thanks

 

[Varun]

Samsung make quiet fast drives, Seagate has the best warranty.

SATA II means nothing right now, and will likely be a long time before it does.

I like the Samsung Spinpoints.

 

[entropy1982]

any particular reason?

 

[Varun]

Spinpoints are quiet, and perform quite well. They are also the coolest running drives out there.

I think you would have a hard time noticing the slight performance differences of most drives anyways, as they are all quite good now. So, the other issues are heat and noise and the Spinpoint is tops in both of those departments.

As an added bonus the latest spinpoint is SATA II though as I said it has no performance advantage over ATA 133 or SATA 150, however in RAID it might make a difference, though I doubt it.

 

[Ricemarine]

Maxtor Diamondmax 10's in raid 0.

If you can get enough drives, raid 5.

 

[entropy1982]

what are the advantages of raid 5 to raid 0 and what is good about the diamondmax?

 

[Varun]

RAID 5 requires 3 drives minimum, and has parity bits that rotate through each drive, so that if any one of the three drives die, another drive can be swapped in without data loss.

Since you said you don't care about data loss, stick with RAID 0. RAID 5 has overhead, and most onboard controllers won't do RAID 5. RAID 5 is for servers with dedicated controller cards.

Maxtor's reliability as of late is questionable, most people won't recommend them.

 

[Ricemarine]

well they have 16 MB cache, and they have a 3 year warranty.

 

[entropy1982]

i have actually heard of this (maxtor failing easily). Anyone have any input on this? Also... in what sense does the extra cache boost performance?

 

[d2arcturus]

Originally posted by: entropy1982
(maxtor failing easily)

And I have experienced it, quite a few times, before i switched to Western Digital.

As of right now, I would recommend Samsung for low noise/heat.
Seagate for low noise and nice warranty (5yrs).
Western Digital for speed: Caviar SE16 <-- These things are badass.

 

[entropy1982]

Hmm... so what do you guys think about 2X250gb WD caviar SE16 drives in raid 0?

The reason data loss is of no concern to me is i have like 120 gigs on which i will just use a program that automatically backs up anything important at night.

So what do you think of my choice?

 

[entropy1982]

Actually .... after reading this review
link

i have changed my mind hehe