What's the best deal going on hard drives these days

JoLLyRoGer

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2000
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Here's my plan,

I'd like to implement RAID 0 for the performance boost and start using my old 500 GB IDE drive (recycled from my old rig) strictly for backup storage.

I'm figuring a pair of 250GB-ers (or less depending on price) should do the trick

Then, I can just configure Acronis to backup the stripe set on the IDE drive periodically incase the array ever fails...

Can anyone recommend some good cheap (I know, good and cheap together in a scentence - LOL!!) drives that are SATA 300?

ALSO,

Is there a significant performance difference between the 8 and 16 MB Cache drives when they are in a RAID setup?


Thanks,
JR..
 

AmberClad

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2005
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I think in terms of the best GB/$ ratio, 500GB drives for $100 are the sweet spot right now.
 

JoLLyRoGer

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2000
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Man... a 1 TB RAID Array! That is soooo tempting, but >$200.00 is just more than I'm able to spend for a drive array at the moment. I'd hate to wait too long just because I'd like to get this in place, but both of your suggestions are definately food for thought...
 

JoLLyRoGer

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2000
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I found these for $61.58 a pop.

Not quite the same bang for the buck as the 500's, but for $123.00, the end price is a little more pallatable... Shipping is like $10.00 so $133.00 after it's all said and done.

What do you think?
 

DSF

Diamond Member
Oct 6, 2007
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Exactly what performance boost are you looking for? Have you done much research into the performance increase you'll see in the applications you use? RAID 0 offers very little in the way of real-world gains.

Food for thought, but at the end of the day it's your decision.
 

Jiggz

Diamond Member
Mar 10, 2001
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Originally posted by: JoLLyRoGer
I found these for $61.58 a pop.

Not quite the same bang for the buck as the 500's, but for $123.00, the end price is a little more pallatable... Shipping is like $10.00 so $133.00 after it's all said and done.

What do you think?

Nice price, but for a little bit more I'd take WD 250GB SE16's.
 

JoLLyRoGer

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2000
4,153
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Originally posted by: DSF
Exactly what performance boost are you looking for? Have you done much research into the performance increase you'll see in the applications you use? RAID 0 offers very little in the way of real-world gains.

Food for thought, but at the end of the day it's your decision.

I'm looking for increased transfer performance. Aside from the usual, one major function of this PC is to double as a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).

I've been using Cubase 3 for recording music on an older machine and recently got Sonar 7 PE. My audio interface runs on firewire and I have a control surface connected as well.

Some of my more complicated arrangements can top 30-40 tracks without blinking. Since each track is natively an individual .wav file, the arrangements can get really big really quick and encoding/streaming all of that at once can get pretty I/O intensive. (I'm also running a Quad Core for this exact reasion)

Having a decent RAID 0 seemed like a reasonable way to bump up my hard disk transfer rates when working with these large files and at the same time maintain a good ammount of storage space. (Plus Raptors are just way too much $$$).

Understanding the risks of a RAID 0 by its self, I also have a 500GB IDE/133 drive that is being transplanted from my old rig that I will use along with Acronis 10 to perform backups after recording sessions.

I figure with a medium to medium-small stripe size I should see relatively good transfer rates without compromising positioning performance a great deal.