I feel sort of bad...

[Markbnj]

...replacing you with an SSD just because it's a lot faster. Five years of continuous operation and flawless service. I just wish there were some sort of pasture I could send you to. Maybe the linux box.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The WD blacks are pretty good drives. I have 8 1TB ones in raid 5 in my main server. Instead of continuing to expand that array I started a raid 10 with 3TB drives though.

I tend to use old hard drives as part of my backup rotation pool. If they fail it's not really a huge deal, it's just 1 copy of many and the live data is still in tact.

 

[brianmanahan]

hehe, i kept my WD black in my computer after i copied its contents to an SSD. but i dont use it much because its just so dang LOUD

 

[Markbnj]

Ha, they are pretty noisy, but damn they are built like a brick shithouse. I would have kept this one in the windows box but I already had another 400GB Blue that I had in there and needed to keep because it had the restore image. And the linux box I built already has a TB (Seagate), but I will probably toss this in there anyway, if only to wipe it.

 

[shortylickens]

Backup drive?

I used my old one as a swap drive in my gaming rig.
When it dies, oh well.

 

[Markbnj]

Backup drive?

I used my old one as a swap drive in my gaming rig.
When it dies, oh well.

Yeah I will put it in the new linux box tonight, set up samba and use it as a backup drive.

 

[mikeford]

I'm too cheap, the SSD I use are as small as I can get away with, usually OS and a very few other items, almost zero data which goes on old school drives.

 

[Markbnj]

I'm too cheap, the SSD I use are as small as I can get away with, usually OS and a very few other items, almost zero data which goes on old school drives.

I was in the same boat for a long time, but I decided to finally make the switch this last weekend. Picked up a Samsung EVO-840 500GB for $279 at Newegg. It's still a lot compared to a hard disk of the same size, obviously, but the performance improvement is dramatic.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Heh, I just ordered a 750 GB Samsung EVO ($350 at Amazon!)* as the game installs / steam drive for my gaming PC since the 250 GB Samsung 830 was full.

I still have a 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint (another classic platter drive) for backups, but the boot drive and game drive are SSD.

I could get rid of the Spinpoint and just use a 2.5" external USB drive, but it's a big Antec P280 case so I might as well let the spinny keep its job. Windows 7 keeps it parked most of the time so it's silent unless in use.


* it was $350 when I ordered last night, but it's back up to $400 now

 

[Markbnj]

I was awful tempted by the 750 but I just couldn't get there. Anyway history shows that 500 is big-enough for my system drive, and between the 400 Blue, the 500 Black, and the 1TB seagate in the linux machine I have more bits than I need by a good margin, now. I might start a cloud service!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

...replacing you with an SSD just because it's a lot faster. Five years of continuous operation and flawless service. I just wish there were some sort of pasture I could send you to. Maybe the linux box.

That drive was manufactured four years and two months ago. (January, 2010.)

Are you a Time Lord?

 

[Murloc]

just use it for data and for downloading big stuff. So for the linux box I guess.

 

[Markbnj]

That drive was manufactured four years and two months ago. (January, 2010.)

Are you a Time Lord?

Indeed, but that is all I can say.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I have a 1TB WD Black as my secondary drive in my desktop. Not really very noisy, though, or I wouldn't use it. Can't say I have much use these days for drives under 1TB.

 

[Red Squirrel]

This is what smaller drives can be good for:



:biggrin:

Though, when buying new it does make more sense to just buy bigger drives. Right now it seems 3TB is best bang for the buck.

Will be interesting to see what happens when the 6TB drives are released. I'm hoping the 3's and 4's take a big price drop so I can buy more. Not that I need the space but more spindles is always better.

 

[Carson Dyle]

What kind of platter density will the 6TB drives have? If the platter count doesn't go down in the 3 and 4TB drives, you won't see their price fall much, if at all.

 

[Red Squirrel]

What kind of platter density will the 6TB drives have? If the platter count doesn't go down in the 3 and 4TB drives, you won't see their price fall much, if at all.

Looks like it's 1TB per platter.

http://www.zdnet.com/seagate-announces-6tb-hard-drive-7000027724/

Guessing when they say per platter it's per side? So there would be 3 platters I guess. Or is it really 512GB per side? That means 6 platters in a single drive.

I would not mind 6 of those in raid 10. :biggrin: No way would I use stand alone though, that's a lot of data to lose/restore when it fails.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Guessing when they say per platter it's per side?

No, typically it means both sides.

 

[Markbnj]

I have a 1TB WD Black as my secondary drive in my desktop. Not really very noisy, though, or I wouldn't use it. Can't say I have much use these days for drives under 1TB.

Well they have gotten quieter over the last four years and two months.

 

[Imp]

I only buy WD Blacks for personal use. Mine has been good for a bit past 4 years now. Fingers crossed it keeps going because I don't feel like opening my case up -- such a damn chore. Oh, and I threw an SSD in there exactly a year ago. The WD is my non-OS drive.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Well they have gotten quieter over the last four years and two months.

The one I have is a WD1001FALS with a manufacture date of 2-Jun-09.

I have a second one that developed bad sectors that I was going to RMA. I see from the spreadsheet I keep to inventory my HDDs that its warranty expired in December. Oops. Looks like its a paperweight now.

 

[brianmanahan]

I was in the same boat for a long time, but I decided to finally make the switch this last weekend. Picked up a Samsung EVO-840 500GB for $279 at Newegg. It's still a lot compared to a hard disk of the same size, obviously, but the performance improvement is dramatic.

samsungs are good stuff. my original SSD was a 120 gb intel x25, but i recently switched to a 240gb 840 pro.

BLAZE IT SSD!

 

[Markbnj]

samsungs are good stuff. my original SSD was a 120 gb intel x25, but i recently switched to a 240gb 840 pro.

BLAZE IT SSD!

I knew that the spinning mechanical platters in my case were the final frontier of big performance gains, but I didn't really _know_ until I booted for the first time off the SSD. Now that was satisfying.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Felt the same way about my FW900, when I swapped it for a Catleap 2B. Lost some picture quality, but the brightness gains was worth it. The FW900, just was such a hassle between the warm up times, geometry adjustments, weight, heat, and brightness. That being said I still miss it whenever I load up a fast twitch fps. Nothing beats the response time of a CRT.

 

[brianmanahan]

I knew that the spinning mechanical platters in my case were the final frontier of big performance gains, but I didn't really _know_ until I booted for the first time off the SSD. Now that was satisfying.

yup and i think the most satisfying thing is that the performance gain is permanent

used to be as i installed more crap on my PC, it would get slower over a span of 3-4 years, primarily because of HDD access. it wasnt a problem with fragmentation, i had just installed enough crap that needed to be accessed on startup that it noticeably slowed down.

since putting the x25 in, i havent felt a decrease at all since then. got a noticeable boost when i swapped for the 840, and thats been going strong for about a year now.