Question about hard drives

[computerguy1234]

Hi, this is the last and most troubling part of my build. HARD DRIVES. I don't know which one to get and whenever i see a good hard drive at a good price point and storage, its blasted with hundreds of bad reviews. My current build is:

-Intel core i5 3570k
-Nvidia Evga GTX 660
-Corsair CX 430W PSU
-Corsair Vengence 16 gb
-Asrock pro-4m

I am willing on spending approx. 100 dollars on a hard drive. I will primarily be using it for gaming and a bit of editing. I wan't a hard that will last a very long time and be very reliable. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Z15CAM]

For $107.99 at NCIX I would choose the WD1003FBYX
Western Digital 1TB WD RE4 Enterprise Hard Drive
Western Digital RE4 1TB SATA3 7200RPM 64MB

Ideal for servers, video surveillance and other demanding write-intensive applications.
Dual actuator - Highest level of reliability for 24x7 - RAID Specific

Read Write @171 MB/s
Average Latency 4.20 ms
Transfer Rate (Buffer To Disk) 128 MB/s
Load/unload Cycles 600,000 minimum (This is impressive 2x's that of the Black Edition)
MTBF 1.200,000
Warranty 5yr
2 Platters(high Density) 4 Heads NICE - Somewhat noisy

I would like 2 of these in Raid 0 for Media Studio Encoding behind the OS on a Samsung 128BG SSD ;o)

The RE4 is better Hard Drive then the Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FAEX 1TB SATA3 6GB/S [Dual Proc Hard Drive] for $94.79 in my opinion but the Black is very poular.
No compromises for Performance.

Average Latency 4.20 ms
Transfer Rate (Buffer To Disk) 126 MB/s (Max)
Load/unload Cycles 300,000 minimum (1/2 of the RE4)
MTBF ?????
Warranty 5yr

You can get a WD5003ABYX Western Digital WD RE4 500GB 7200RPM 64MB 3.5 Sata3 for around $87.69. 2 of these in Raid 0 would also be nice.

 

[computerguy1234]

Since the re4 is mainly used in raids and servers. Will it be alright if i use it for gaming and video editing and not running 24/7 on it?

 

[jimmybgood9]

If you are not going to use the drive in a parity RAID array, like RAID 5 or RAID 6, then get the Caviar Black. The RE4 has a feature (TLER) that limits the drive to seven seconds to try to recover an unreadable sector so the RAID array can handle the error with its parity information. The black will spend more time and will have a better chance of recovering the data and then remapping the sector so the problem won't happen again.

Really, though, these are both great reliable, high-performance drives and with a little luck either will serve you well. But any drive can fail unexpectedly at the worst time.

 

[Blain]

I don't know which one to get and whenever i see a good hard drive at a good price point and storage, its blasted with hundreds of bad reviews.

1. How do you judge a hard drive to be "good" in the first place?
2. By "reviews" are you talking about full-blown reviews by web sites like Storage Reviews, X-Bit Labs, AnandTech, Tech Report, etc, or are you talking about the little blurbs anyone can post at vendors like Newegg, Tiger Direct or Amazon?

 

[computerguy1234]

I'm not so sure myself. I just wan't a really reliable hard drive that will last me a long time. Many many people have been telling me that most hard drives aren't lasting that long and i want a hard drive that will have the least percent rate of error. The caviar black on newegg has at least 500 bad reviews and i really dont want to take the risk, But on the re4 on newegg, it has 247 views with 5 eggs so majority were good. I just wan't the most reliable hard that has a higher chance of lasting long for gaming and video editing.