If you were to build your own computer and deciding on the storage... Would you rather to have one big harddrive and run everything from it, or have 2 smaller drives, one of which would carry the OS and programs and another - everything else? Why would you choose it to be so?
What brand do you consider to be the best in harddrives and why? Maxtor, Seagate, HP, WD, anything else? Any known problems with any of them? I'd like to get something like 1 of 150GB or 2 of 100GB or so, in the range of $1/Gb or less, with SATA interface.
PS. Please don't answer anything like "I'm using Maxtor DiamondMax 9 and it works great for me". I'm looking for the answers of people who live and breathe computers.
2006-08-28 16:26:46 · 10 answers · asked by Negotiator 3 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Desktops
I always recommend 2 hard drives. One for your OS and the other for storage. It's also a good idea to put the paging file on your second hard drive.
WD and Maxtor both make solid dependable hard drives. I've never had one fail on me in the last six years. Seagate is also a solid brand and many of their drives carry a 5 year warranty.
If you wanted a great hard drive for your OS I would suggest a WD Raptor. They are the fastest SATA drive available.
It looks like you need storage more than speed so I'd say you should get a couple 160GB WD Caviar drives. They sell on newegg.com for $57.99 each.
2006-08-28 18:16:54 · answer #1 · answered by taskr36 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, in my experience, one of the better brands is Western Digital, or Maxtor is good too, and yet so is Seagate. They are all good drives with low failure rates. Seagate usually comes with their own diagnostic program to help detct failures and so you can see how the drive is performing. I built my computer and just used 1 massive 200gb drive. You can always partition it if you want to keep things separated. In some ways, 2 drives are better, as if you needed to reformat, you could move the vital documents over and then just reformat and move back. But, i have a removeable hard drive for that purpose if I ever need to. If you do get a large harddrive make sure to get harddrive fans as they usually run hotter than the smaller ones like 100gb.
2006-08-28 16:33:10 · answer #2 · answered by fullerfyed 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The size of the drive isn't such an issue with prices being so low. If you would want two because of the possibility of loosing your data in the event of one drive going bad, then you may want to purchase an external hard drive or backup software like Acronis do make an image of your drive to burn on DVD's. There are several options with backup.
The size of the drive should be considered after you know what you want to use the computer for. If it is for mainly office apps and web browsing, then get a small drive to save yourself some money and invest in a good backup option. Since the price of hard drives keeps dropping, don't spend a lot for a large drive is you are not going to need it in the next 6 months.
As far as the Brand..
In our computer shop, we purchase Western Digital Hard Drive. For a few reasons.
First, you can get a 3 year warranty with most of the OEM drives. A lot of hard drives on the market only have a 1 year warranty.
Second, if there is a problem with the drive you can go to Western Digital's website and do the return yourself. You do not need to remember which online store you purchase it from for the return. The return process is very easy. They will even advance ship you a replacement drive before receiving your old drive. As a repair shop, this a very import factor for us. The few returns we have done, have been very easy. Of all of our suppliers, they are one of the best when it comes getting a drive replaced.
Everyone will have different ideas of which brand they like. But our experience in our computer shop leads us to Western Digital. Again, mostly because of the reasons stated above.
2006-08-28 16:49:54 · answer #3 · answered by pattiebear 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would definitely go with two hard drives if you can. Put your swap file on one, and your OS on the other. It may not affect your speed much now, but later on, when your system is not up to date, and the applications you want to run need more Ram then you have, having the ability to have one drive load the swap file while the other loads your OS is extremely useful. Plus two drives gives you more flexibility anyway.
Regardless of your choice of Brand, Make sure to Back-up Vital documents. Coming from a house that at one point had 5 separate people using 7 separate home-built computers, WD hard drives had the lowest click-of-death rate, and tended to service longest in my experience, However, I have had a maxtor 80 GB that out-lasted my WD in the server. So with any brand you pick you have ups and downs.
2006-08-28 16:45:18 · answer #4 · answered by klilly84 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Seagate 1st and foremost for the 5 year warranty. Seagate also has faster seek times, more balanced disks and higher volume densities. Should a catastriphic event arise, their RMA practices are very reasonable.
My ideal configuration would be RAID 1+5 (mirror + parity). It would involve at least 6 drives, three for each mirror. I'd run this configuration for double redundancy backup and the ease for a rebuild. If I have only two drives, I'd run RAID 1 so that when my drive fails, I will have a backup. Currently I have a "dormant" disk the same model and make as my primary disk. On a weekly basis I use norton ghost 2003 (preference) to make an exact copy of the drive. If the drive fails, I just set up my "dormant" drive as primary and off I go.
2006-08-28 18:42:00 · answer #5 · answered by TxVarmit 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I use two Western Digital 74gb Raptors in 0 Raid which gives me about 140gb free space. I made a 22gb C partion for the operating system and use the D partition for programs. Western Digital claims they are the fastest in the world. I would consider these the best, however, at over $150 each, that would be over $2 per gb. They are selling a new model Raptor 150gb for $200 at newegg. I would recommend using two drives in a raid setup over a single drive. For $1 per gb I would use two 80 gb 7200 rpm WD Caviar SE SATA drives ( MODEL: WD800JD) in a 0 raid. They list for $ 60.00 each on Western Digital's website. They make very high quality stuff.
2006-08-28 17:25:18 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
2....If I were you I would go with HP. I am a computer person, but I cannot get them ( my Maxtor and Seagate harddrives that just like crashed) to even show up when I start the computer, so you might have problems with them in the future. Be on the safe side.... don't just go cheap.
2006-08-28 16:31:33 · answer #7 · answered by scrappy06 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Go with a western digital hd and run 1 of them. they are very reliable and their software for the installation of the os and pretty much everything.
2006-08-28 16:53:26 · answer #8 · answered by segerdude 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
appears like your no longer uncomplicated tension has died, in the journey that your warrentys run out you will possibly desire to the two take it back to Apple for maintenance (won't get your documents back the two) or attempt it your self. you will pick yet another no longer uncomplicated tension of the comparable style element and comparable port (i.e SATA or IDE) as quickly as you have executed that, reinstall macintosh onto your no longer uncomplicated tension and notice if it boots without problems, if it does, then your situation is your no longer uncomplicated tension, you will possibly be waiting to get better your documents if absolutly necassary, no ensures although. solid good fortune
2016-11-06 00:07:14 · answer #9 · answered by jenniffer 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
WD all the way
2006-08-28 16:29:31 · answer #10 · answered by Frodo 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋